Forty-six Ukraine war veterans elected to Russia’s State Duma
Russia’s electoral authorities say 46 participants and veterans of the Ukraine offensive have been elected to the State Duma, making the new parliament the country’s most military-heavy in modern history. Most represent President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, while Ukraine has accused at least one deputy of involvement in atrocities.
Forty-six participants and veterans of Russia’s Ukraine offensive have been elected to the State Duma, according to Russia’s electoral chief, giving the lower house one of its largest military contingents in the country’s modern history. The veterans took their seats on Wednesday as the parliament held its first session after tightly controlled elections. They account for about one-tenth of the Duma, according to the supplied report, as Russia’s invasion enters its fifth year.
President Vladimir Putin addressed the session and described the new deputies as people who had demonstrated loyalty to Russia on the battlefield. He said their experience and frontline ties would strengthen parliament. Most of the veterans represent Putin’s United Russia party.
Their wartime roles varied and included commanders, fighters, medics and a former admiral. Among them is Nursultan Mussagaleyev, a commander whom Ukraine says participated in atrocities in Bucha in 2022. The Kremlin has rejected Ukraine’s accusations.
Russia awarded Mussagaleyev the Hero of Russia medal, and he has attended meetings with Putin. The new deputies also include Vladislav Golovin, head of Russia’s Youth Army, who fought in Mariupol, and former naval deputy admiral Vladimir Kasatonov. Lyudmila Bolilaya, a nurse from the Moscow region who became a war medic and received the Hero of Russia award, is among the United Russia deputies.
Asked what the veterans would bring to parliament, elected deputy Andrei Kozlov told Russian media that their main quality was belief in Putin as supreme commander-in-chief. He said they would remain behind him until victory. Vyacheslav Volodin, a Kremlin loyalist who has been Duma speaker since 2016, was re-elected.
He said the “collective West” was seeking to prevent Russia’s development and warned against a repeat of the upheavals associated with 1917 and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. The appointments underline the growing role of military experience in Russia’s political institutions during the conflict.
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