Russian general election, ruling United Russia Party landslide victory... A large number of veterans enter the hospital

(Istanbul = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Dong-ho = The ruling party secured an absolute majority of seats in the first general election since Russia invaded Ukraine.

In addition, dozens of Russian veterans who served on the Ukrainian front were elected to the House of Representatives (State Duma).

According to TASS news agency on the 25th (local time), Ela Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission of Russia, announced the final vote counting results of the elections held from the 18th to the 20th.

First, the voter turnout was calculated to be 59.8%, close to 60%. It surpassed both the 2021 and 2016 figures, which were around 50%.

The ruling United Russia Party swept 349 seats, or about 78%, of the 450 seats in the State Duma. Next, a total of six political parties entered the National Assembly, including the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (37 seats), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (23 seats), the New People Party (19 seats), the Just Russia Party (17 seats), and the Rodina Party (1 seat).

Four independent lawmakers were elected.

In this election, a large number of former soldiers with experience participating in Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine ran for office, and a total of 46 people were elected, and 41 of them are members of the United Russia Party.

The average age of the new State Duma members is 53 years old, which is younger than the last time, which was 57 years old.

Chairman Pamfilova emphasized that 1,126 observers from 133 countries monitored the general election, and that their nationalities were diverse, including the United States, Australia, Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, France, and Spain. However, North Korea said that no observers came.

The fact that Russian authorities disclosed that observers came from several Western countries is interpreted as an attempt to assert that the election process was fair.

On the other hand, 17 people who were in charge of managing the general elections in each constituency were suspended from their duties, and Chairperson Pamfilova pointed out that 6 of them were members of the Yabloko Party. The Yabloko Party, the only political party in Russia that opposes the war, was disqualified from running a proportional representation candidate on the party list by a Supreme Court decision last month, and as a result, it staged several protest performances during the general election.

Chairman Pamfilova said that during the general election, the Russian election system was attacked by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks 13 times for a total of 468 minutes, and the security system prevented them.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the news of veterans being elected as lawmakers at a briefing on the same day, saying, "This is a very good thing. The experience of our heroes is very important, and the voting results clearly showed this."