Late September and early October marked the start of preparations for the 2026 State Duma campaign in Russia.

Both the Kremlin and the opposition are already gearing up for the vote. The systemic opposition — parties represented in parliament — is analyzing its performance in the September regional elections, while the non-systemic opposition is seeking to consolidate its efforts. At the same time, the Kremlin has been increasing pressure on the Yabloko party.

All this is unfolding against the backdrop of a gradual reduction in the number of political parties in Russia.

These are the key topics covered in REM’s Election Update XIV.

1. Summary of elections 2025: United Russia’s victory amid electoral inequality

In September 2025, Russia held regional and local elections. 20 regions elected governors, 11 regions elected new regional parliaments, while 24 regional capitals held city council elections.

The results were entirely predictable. Kremlin-backed candidates won all gubernatorial races, while United Russia secured 1,093 seats in regional and city parliaments — four times more than all other parties combined.

As a result of the September elections, United Russia increased its average share of seats in the 11 regional legislatures and 24 city councils of regional capitals from 73% in 2020 to 81% in 2025.

The ruling party secured a majority in all 24 city councils of regional capitals where voting took place, gaining 82 additional seats and creating another so-called “monoparliament” — the Magadan city council, now composed entirely of United Russia deputies. It also regained full control of the municipal assemblies in Tomsk, Novosibirsk, and Tambov, which had been opposition strongholds following the 2020 elections.

United Russia achieved these results amid the mass disqualification of opposition candidates, pressure on the Communist Party, rejection of registrations on formal grounds, and the widespread use of remote and home voting. Read more about the violations observed during the voting days in REM’s Statement on Russian regional elections 2025.

2. CPRF weakens, LDPR strengthens

In Russia’s 2025 regional assembly elections (both party lists and single-member districts), United Russia received 3,057,000 votes — 929,000 more than in 2020 in the same regions. LDPR received 464,000 votes (+9,000), CPRF 444,000 (–148,000), Just Russia 334,000 (–12,000), and New People 279,000 (+184,000; compared with 2020, when they participated in four campaigns; this year the party ran in nine out of 11 regions).

These results signal a significant shift in Russia’s party landscape ahead of the 2026 State Duma elections. LDPR is clearly consolidating its role as the country’s second party. At the same time, New People are on the rise, potentially pushing Just Russia into the smallest faction in the Duma. Meanwhile, CPRF continues to steadily lose regional voters.

In the councils of regional capitals, CPRF lost 30.7% of its mandates nationwide. Its faction in Krasnodar shrank from six deputies to just one. The Communists once again failed to enter the city parliaments of Vladimir and Lipetsk, and lost all their seats in Magadan and Syktyvkar, where they had previously held four mandates.

By contrast, LDPR improved its result by 25%. The party was still unable to regain seats in the councils of Novosibirsk and Magadan as well as in the Kostroma parliament. Nevertheless, LDPR secured representation in Vladimir, Makhachkala, Ulyanovsk, and Lipetsk.

Just Russia’s representation declined by 7%. The party lost seats in Ivanovo, Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk, and Magadan and once again failed to enter the councils of Kostroma and Novosibirsk. However, its factions nearly doubled in Orel (from 5 to 8) and Makhachkala (from 3 to 5).

For New People, participating in regional capital elections for only the second time, the 2025 results were highly successful. The party gained seats in the city councils of Vladimir, Stavropol, Ivanovo, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Ulyanovsk, Astrakhan, Smolensk, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Lipetsk, Tambov, Kazan, Izhevsk, and Cheboksary. The only council it failed to retain was in Makhachkala.

3. Non-systemic opposition prepares for State Duma elections 2026

Various factions of Russia’s non-systemic opposition are exploring ways to unite ahead of the 2026 State Duma elections, though success seems unlikely.

Members of the non-parliamentary democratic opposition are discussing the formation of a political alliance for the Duma race. Potential participants in the alliance include unregistered presidential candidate 2024 Boris Nadezhdin, representatives of the Civic Initiative party (recently dissolved by the Justice Ministry), and the unregistered Rassvet (“Dawn”) party, currently being formed under the leadership of another barred presidential hopeful, Yekaterina Duntsova.

Rassvet recently held its second founding congress. The next step is the formation of regional branches across the country — a necessary move toward official registration, a process expected to take several months. The party’s previous attempt at registration failed after the Ministry of Justice rejected it on formal grounds.

Opinions within the potential coalition, however, differ. Some believe a renewed democratic bloc could secure a few parliamentary seats, while others see little chance of even achieving official registration.

Amid discussions of a potential non-systemic opposition coalition, repression against some of its participants has intensified. For example, Dmitry Kisiev, former head of Nadezhdin’s presidential campaign team, was notified that his citizenship was being revoked for allegedly “destabilizing society”.

On the evening of 3 October, security officers arrived at Kisiev’s apartment and ordered him to leave the country, citing the “absence of legal grounds for his stay in the Russian Federation”. He reports that court hearings over the revocation of his citizenship have been ongoing since July, but authorities have never presented the original decision document, supposedly because it is classified as a state secret.

4. Crackdown on Yabloko party

Since the 2025 regional elections, state pressure on the Yabloko party has significantly intensified. Several of its most prominent federal and regional figures now face criminal prosecution and psychological pressure.

Maksim Kruglov, Yabloko’s deputy chair, was arrested on charges of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army. He had been expected to lead the Moscow branch of the party ahead of the 2026 Moscow City Duma elections.

Lev Shlosberg, leader of Yabloko’s strong regional branch in Pskov, was released from house arrest only to be placed under it again three days later. Previously labeled a “foreign agent”, Lev Shlosberg is barred from participating in the 2026 campaign.

Boris Vishnevsky, Yabloko’s most prominent politician in St. Petersburg, remains on trial for “collaboration with an undesirable organization” after the interview he gave to the election watchdog Golos. Just like Schlosberg, Vishnevsky has been designated a “foreign agent” and is barred from running for office.

Marina Zheleznyakova, deputy head of Yabloko’s Primorsky branch, is facing prosecution for “rehabilitating Nazism”. Investigators allege that she criticized the USSR’s actions in World War II in one of her social media posts.

On 12 October, the Telegram channel of Sergey Mitrokhin, a member of Yabloko’s Federal Council, was hacked and all content deleted.

5. Russia’s party landscape may shrink to 14

By the 2025 regional elections, 23 political parties were officially registered in Russia. That number is set to fall to 20, following recent Supreme Court rulings dissolving the Civic Initiative party and the All-Russian People’s Union. The Party of Growth is next in line for dissolution.

Among the remaining political parties, six are currently at risk, as they are likely to fail to meet the Ministry of Justice’s requirements for active political participation:

• The Democratic Party
• The Party “For Justice”
• The Party of Progress
• The Social Protection Party
• The Cossack Party
• The Party of the Revival of Russia

The Ministry of Justice measures active political participation by the number of candidates a party nominates and successfully registers in regional legislative elections. To be recognized as politically active, a party must have participated in at least 18 regional legislative campaigns and at least 45 municipal election campaigns over the past seven years. Most of the mentioned parties exist merely on paper with no meaningful engagement in political life. The majority function as so-called “spoiler parties”.

As a result, the total number of officially registered parties in Russia may soon shrink to just 14 — four times fewer than in 2019, when the Ministry of Justice listed 61. The authorities began eliminating “small parties” in 2020. By September 2020, the number had fallen to 42, and by January 2025, only 25 parties remained.

Only the so-called systemic parties will likely survive — the five parliamentary factions and a handful of spoiler parties. This development signals the final eradication of even symbolic political alternatives: the Kremlin no longer sees a need for decorative “small parties” to preserve the illusion of pluralism.

Stay Informed:

Subscribe to the REM newsletter “Russian Election Update” to receive regular analysis of electoral trends and political developments in Russia.