Table Stakes - September 21st

Good morning everyone,

I’m Atlas, and welcome to Table Stakes!

Here’s a look at today’s topics:

• Putin's Party Heads for Record Duma Majority as Drones Hit Moscow on Voting Day

• Left Wins Berlin, AfD Tops Northeast as Merz's Party Is Shut Out of a State Parliament

• Old Enemies From Ethiopia's Tigray War Join Alliance to Remove Abiy

Putin's Party Heads for Record Duma Majority as Drones Hit Moscow on Voting Day

_{By: Atlas}

Preliminary returns Monday showed President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party on course for its largest State Duma faction ever, in Russia's first parliamentary election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The three-day vote closed Sunday under what Russian officials called the largest Ukrainian drone assault on Moscow since the war began. Russia then vowed to intensify strikes on Kyiv, and Russian drones hit the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late Sunday into Monday.

Pamfilova projects a record faction

With more than 95 percent of ballots counted, Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said United Russia held 57.83 percent of the party-list vote, up from 49.8 percent in 2021, and led in 208 of 225 single-member districts. She projected about 355 of the Duma's 450 seats for the ruling party, its largest faction ever, above 343 seats in 2016 and 31 more than the 324 it held after 2021. A constitutional majority requires 301 seats. Final certified results are due later in the week.

Pamfilova put the Communist Party at 13.81 percent and about 40 seats, the Liberal Democratic Party at 8.98 percent and about 25 seats, and New People at 7.96 percent and about 20 seats. A Just Russia stood at 4.96 percent. Pamfilova said it had a good chance to clear the five-percent list threshold and projected it for about four seats.

Pamfilova announced turnout of 59.32 percent and called it the highest ever for a Duma election. She thanked voters despite what she called "psychological pressure." Turnout stood near 57 percent as polls closed Sunday, among more than 111 million eligible voters. Half of the Duma's seats are filled by party list and half by single-member districts.

Occupied territories and contested legitimacy

Voting extended to Crimea and to Russian-held parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, territories Moscow claims to have annexed and that the U.N. General Assembly and most governments do not recognize as Russian. Kyiv called the balloting there illegal and urged foreign governments not to recognize the results. The European Union condemned the occupied-territory vote as a blatant violation of international law and said it would never recognize the results of what it called sham elections. Russia did not invite Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe election observers.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X that the outcome "was never in doubt," that the Kremlin had silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed the war, and shut out international monitors, and that a "veneer of democracy is all that remains." She said she was proposing measures against those who facilitated "sham elections" in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Russia's Supreme Court removed the liberal Yabloko party from the party-list ballot on Aug. 10, and an appeal was rejected on Aug. 17. The party was left with a limited set of single-district candidacies. Systemic opposition parties that largely back the Kremlin's Ukraine policy remained on the ballot. Election officials also reported cyberattacks and communication disruptions during the vote and said the process continued.

Mega-drone weekend over the capital

On the final day of voting, Ukraine launched a mass overnight drone campaign that Russian authorities described as the largest strike on Moscow since February 2022. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 450 drones were aimed at the capital. Russian officials put the broader overnight wave at roughly 1,100 to 1,600 drones, and Russia's Defense Ministry said it shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones overnight, the largest single overnight figure it has published. Ukraine gave no public count of drones launched. The tallies are Russian official figures and have not been independently verified.

Officials said the strikes killed two people. Sobyanin said drones reached the Moscow Oil Refinery, setting it on fire, and struck a residential building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv's long-range strikes had a "very significant impact" in the Moscow region and hit a key oil facility that helps fund Russia's war. Sobyanin accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the election and said the attempt failed.

Russia vowed to "intensify" strikes on Kyiv. The Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt "the democratic will of Russian citizens."

Zaporizhzhia hit amid the reply

Late Sunday into Monday, Russian drones struck Zaporizhzhia, hitting apartment blocks, a university, and a shopping mall, among other sites. Zelenskyy said five people were wounded. Overnight, Russia's Defense Ministry said it downed 244 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the Black Sea, and Ukraine's air force said it shot down or suppressed 148 Russian drones in a separate wave. Moldova's Defense Ministry said an unidentified aerial object briefly crossed its northern airspace during the overnight fighting before disappearing near Tabani.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Ukrainian attacks had failed to disrupt the vote and that there had been no progress yet in settlement talks, though Russia remained open to further discussions. He said the military operation would continue.

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