Russia is holding its first parliamentary elections this week since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.

They come amid plummeting approval ratings for Vladimir Putin, mounting casualties on the frontline and minimal territorial gains in the grinding war.

The country’s electoral system is tightly controlled and Putin’s United Russia party is expected to retain its majority in the State Duma, which comprises 450 members. It currently has 310 seats and needs to win at least 300 in order to retain its supermajority.

The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said on Friday that airports in Lublin and Rzeszow in southeastern Poland suspended air operations due to military aviation activity.

Vladimir Putin acknowledged the attacks from Ukraine on Russian oil refineries and warehouses inflicted significant damage but insisted the economy can weather it. He said Ukraine had opened a “Pandora’s box,” inviting massive retaliation.

Russia intensified attacks on Kyiv and other cities with missiles and new jet-powered drones, exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of defensive interceptors. Moscow also dramatically stepped up its barrage on Black Sea ports, disrupting Ukrainian exports of grain and other agricultural products, a key source of revenue.

Amid the escalation, fears mounted that the Kremlin was mulling a massive mobilisation.

A partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists in 2022 prompted hundreds of thousands of Russians to flee abroad, undermining domestic stability. Since then, the Kremlin has relied on volunteers to fight, offering comparatively high wages and other benefits. Military experts warned, however, that the flow of volunteers has ebbed while massive losses have continued.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly claims the Kremlin is considering a post-election mobilisation, which Putin dismissed as “nonsense”.

At a 5 September Kremlin meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and a subsequent call with president Donald Trump, Putin said Russia holds the upper hand on the battlefield, signalling he will keep to his maximalist demands for striking a peace deal.

A summer marked by Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes brought the war home for millions of Russians.

The attacks exacerbated problems for the economy, which has plunged into stagnation after an initial boost from massive military spending. The government raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep the growing budget deficit under control.

Strikes on Russian oil refineries sparked a severe fuel crisis that peaked in June, eased for a few weeks and then returned in August.

Adding to the pain was a series of attacks on warehouses of online retailers Wildberries and Ozon. Hundreds of thousands of individual sellers lost their merchandise, sending a shock wave through the economy.

All this dampened the public mood.

Polls recorded a dip in Putin’s approval ratings, even though they remained high, with the independent Levada Center showing it at 76 per cent in August, down from 87 per cent in September 2025.

Even some senior members of Russia’s elite openly expressed discontent.

Andrei Klepach, chief economist of the state VEB.RF bank, warned of possible internal turmoil.

“We won’t win the competition in this war of attrition,” he said at a seminar. “Our costs are mounting. I’m almost sure that we will come to face a social crisis.”

For the first time, the election in Russia includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the invasion.

Ukraine has called the vote illegal.

“Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland,” Putin said in an address before the vote.

With the result predetermined and Vladimir Putin’s political dominance under no immediate threat, analysts say the Kremlin sees the election as a key effort to mobilise public support for the war and legitimise its action.

The Kremlin has stifled even the slightest signs of dissent before three days of voting that began Friday in Russia’s Far East.

The only party that dared to criticise the war was unceremoniously removed from the ballot, and a few anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee abroad.

Russian drones have hit ⁠Nova Poshta’s logistics hub near ⁠the ​Ukrainian ⁠Black Sea ⁠port city ​of Odesa ⁠as well ‌as a cargo ‌vessel in ‌the nearby ⁠port of Chornomorsk, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram, citing ‌the ​use ‌of ⁠both for ⁠military purposes.

Regional polls have opened in Russia for the first parliamentary election since the country’s war on Ukraine that began four years ago.

They come amid plummeting approval ratings for Vladimir Putin, mounting casualties on the frontline and minimal territorial gains in the grinding war.

The country’s electoral system is tightly controlled and Putin’s United Russia party is expected to retain its majority in the State Duma, which comprises 450 members. It currently has 310 seats and needs to win at least 300 in order to retain its supermajority.

Russian forces carried a barrage of attacks on Ukrainian cities on Thursday, including a ⁠strike on an industrial park west of Kyiv that killed one person, a local official said.

Russia’s military had previously carried out most of its attacks at night, but in ⁠recent weeks it has ​expanded ⁠them to daylight hours.

Vitali Bunechko, governor of Zhytomyr region, said the industrial park strike occurred near ⁠the town of Korosten.

The Ukrainian capital underwent ​a ⁠series of air alerts through ‌the day and its mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said one strike hit a non-residential building, injuring one person.

In ‌the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, ‌regional governor Ivan Fedorov said Russian forces attacked a market, triggering a large blaze.

Pictures posted on social media showed the fire ⁠reducing the area to charred ruins. No casualties were recorded.A Russian attack also caused a fire in the southeastern city of Dnipro, injuring two people.

Due to leave office at the end of this year, UN secretary-general António Guterres has warned that the “huge geopolitical divide” and paralysis in the Security Council have created an environment of impunity, with powerful countries flouting international law and the UN Charter.

He cited the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the attacks on Iran by the United States, both veto-wielding council members, as examples.

“Many countries say, ‘If superpowers can violate the law, why can’t we?”‘ the secretary-general said.

“And so what we are seeing around the world is more and more situations in which countries simply do not care. They do whatever they want, knowing that there will be total impunity.”

The violations and impunity have caused death and enormous destruction, he said, and the combination of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the broader Middle East conflict are having “a dramatic impact” on the world economy.

Food and energy prices are going up, interest rates are rising and developing countries face enormous difficulties in responding to the needs of their people.

He expressed hope that these problems will force people to realise that the obstacles can’t be eliminated alone and require international cooperation.