MOSCOW, Sept 9: Russia's ruling party won a resounding victory in every regional election it contested last week, official results showed Monday, in what authorities cast as a show of support for President Vladimir Putin's government.
Russia has banned, jailed or exiled all major opposition politicians since launching the Ukraine offensive in 2022, with elections largely becoming a rubber stamp for Putin and his United Russia party.
The heads of 21 regions went up for election between September 6-8, including the region of Kursk, where Ukraine still controls dozens of villages after mounting a major cross-border offensive last month.
United Russia won 20 out of 21 of them, while an independent pro-Kremlin candidate won the other.
"In my view, the first results of the unified voting day have put a fat end to the attempts of our opponents to destabilise the situation in Russia, to divide our society," the head of Russia's upper house of parliament, Valentina Matvienko, told state media. —AFP
