Colombia

Bogotá, September 21, 2026. The Colombian press is looking at the Russian legislative elections as a foregone conclusion. According to La República, the Kremlin's party, United Russia, led by Vladimir Putin's campaign, is ahead in the elections to the State Duma with more than 57% of the vote according to the first official results, with a participation rate of over 56% announced by the Central Electoral Commission. El Colombiano emphasizes that the party has won all legislative elections since 2003, a fact that none of the three articles presents as surprising.

The two newspapers stress the lack of a genuine alternative: the four other parties in the running support the bulk of Putin's policies and the offensive in Ukraine, while the only formation opposed to the war, Yabloko, was excluded from the race a few weeks earlier by the Supreme Court. La República notes that sectors of the opposition have denounced irregularities during the vote. El Colombiano recalls that this election is the first since the start of the military campaign in Ukraine in 2022 and that it can offer clues about public opinion in the face of the worst conflict in Europe since World War II, without either participation or results leaving any doubt about the outcome.

The last day of voting coincided with what Moscow described as the largest drone attack ever carried out against its capital: more than 1,600 drones intercepted, including 450 targeting Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, cited by the three Colombian articles. La República details the damage to the Moscow oil refinery, already targeted in the past, and reports five deaths in total between the Moscow region and the occupied Kherson area, where an election official is among the victims. Sobyanin, on Telegram, called the attack "unprecedented, clearly planned to disrupt the elections," adding that "the enemy did not succeed."

For the Bogotá press, the message that the Kremlin wants to draw from the election — proof of popular support for the war, which it intends to brandish as such, according to El Colombiano — runs up against an electoral system that observers cited by the same newspaper judge incapable of tolerating dissent, in a country where the war is already entering its fifth year without a announced end in sight.