Hungary

Budapest, September 21, 2026. The Hungarian press reports a Russian election Sunday completely overshadowed by the drone chaos. Index.hu leads with the exit poll published by the VCIOM, the public institute: United Russia, the party supporting Vladimir Putin, collects 49.4% of the votes, far ahead of the Communist Party (14.2%), the LDPR (10.7%), New People (9.7%), and Fair Russia (6.6%); turnout stands at 56.6%, and more than 5.8 million Russians voted online, a record according to the authorities.

But Telex and 444 immediately recall the limits of the vote: the first legislative election since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it "is not, in the strict sense, a real election," writes 444, since the main opponents of the ruling party are excluded from the lists and dissident figures are imprisoned. The media cites a July leak according to which the presidential administration initially aimed for 55% of the votes for United Russia, before lowering the target to 45% so that the result does not visibly deviate too much from the real mood of Russian society.

The last day of voting, Sunday, was marked by what Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the largest drone attack ever carried out against the Russian capital: 1,600 drones launched against Russia, according to him, including 450 targeting Moscow. A refinery in the Kapotnya district caught fire, two people died in the Moscow region, and a house was hit in Kotelniki without causing any casualties. Sobyanin wrote on Telegram that "the largest attack ever carried out by enemy drones has been repelled" and that the goal of "disrupting the elections" had failed.

Volodymyr Zelensky claimed responsibility for targeting "one of Russia's most important oil facilities," mentioning the use of the long-range Flamingo drone and a weapon called Pelican, initially mistaken for a ballistic missile. Index.hu relays the analysis of British historian Mark Galeotti, who believes the attack, timed to coincide with the last day of voting, aimed for a "spectacular demonstration of force" that "ruined Putin's day" by setting the Moscow sky ablaze as the polling stations closed.

At the bottom of the page, HVG's news summary slips in a scene that closes the internal loop: at the market, a candidate from the Hungarian party Mi Hazánk selling T-shirts with Putin's image got upset that "not everyone appreciates his merchandise" - a reminder, by implication, that the Russian divide also runs through the Hungarian political debate.