United Russia has approved the leaders of the party list it will use in the September 2026 State Duma elections. The announcement was made at the party congress in Moscow by its chairman, Dmitry Medvedev.
The top five on the federal list are Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, children’s ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova, war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, and Yunarmiya chief of staff Vladislav Golovin.
The congress also featured a campaign poster with an image of Vladimir Putin. According to the source, this is the first time since 2007 that the party has explicitly presented itself as the president’s party. The poster carried the slogan: “Being for Putin is the basic minimum.”
Putin personally took part in the congress and delivered a short speech. He said Russia could not be defeated on the battlefield and described participants in the war as the “true elite.”
The election for the ninth-convocation State Duma is scheduled for September 18 to 20. Earlier, Meduza’s sources said members of the security apparatus wanted to persuade Putin to postpone the vote because, in their assessment, the authorities are losing control of the situation in the country.
At the congress, Putin said the elections would “take place on schedule and in strict accordance with the law, and all measures for their security will be taken.”
According to Meduza, the Kremlin understands that the United Russia brand is unpopular with many Russians. For that reason, the party is prepared to make its presence less visible at city and neighborhood events and at “harvest festivals,” which for now remain the main form of its campaign activity.