Russia's election chief reports nonstop cyberattack on Moscow e-voting system

Russian authorities said voting infrastructure and communication lines were attacked on the second day of a three-day parliamentary election, with the head of the Central Election Commission describing a large-scale cyberattack on Moscow's electronic voting platform that continued into Saturday.

"The Moscow system was under a very powerful attack, literally non-stop, all night long," Ella Pamfilova, the commission's chairwoman, told reporters on Saturday morning, according to Al Jazeera, which cited AFP and Reuters. "This attack is ongoing almost constantly, and it's very large-scale and intense, meaning it's currently targeting Moscow."

Interfax reported that the attack on Moscow's online voting system began overnight between Friday and Saturday and was still under way. Pamfilova said the platform was working normally. She gave no details about the nature of the attack and did not say who was responsible.

First Duma vote since February 2022

The election will fill all 450 seats in the State Duma, Russia's lower house, and runs until 18:00 GMT on Sunday. It is the first Duma election since the full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022, and the governing United Russia party, which backs President Vladimir Putin, is widely expected to keep its dominant position.

Most antiwar candidates were kept off the ballot before voting began across Russia's 11 time zones. Last month the Supreme Court ruled that the liberal Yabloko party, which calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine, had violated electoral rules, a finding the party denies.

Nationwide turnout was 32.58% at 14:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Saturday, according to commission data cited by state media. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the state news agency TASS that Russians were taking part actively despite physical threats and cyber challenges, and said the turnout reflected a united answer to what she described as a war declared on Russia and its people.

Kyiv and Moscow trade accusations

Putin on Friday accused Ukraine of trying to "hinder" the vote. Kyiv has not responded to that accusation, though Ukraine has called the election farcical. On Friday morning, according to Moscow's mayor, the capital was targeted by more than 350 Ukrainian drones. Al Jazeera reported that Kyiv has kept up air attacks intended to make Russians feel the war's political, social and economic effects at a moment when the vote could offer the Kremlin a reading of public sentiment about the conflict.

What it means: The claim of a sustained attack on Moscow's e-voting system, made by the election commission itself, comes without any attribution, technical detail or independent confirmation, and Pamfilova's own account is that the system kept running. What is verifiable is the political setting: a ballot with no antiwar party after the Yabloko ruling, a 32.58% turnout by midday Saturday, and a capital that reported a mass drone raid the morning voting opened. The commission's message pairs a warning about outside interference with an assurance that voting is unaffected; Zakharova's framing of turnout as a wartime show of unity fits the same script. Whether the final turnout and United Russia's margin support that reading will be clearer after polls close Sunday evening.