Russians voting at embassies and consulates abroad backed the liberal New People party over Vladimir Putin's United Russia by a margin of eight to one, according to two independent exit polls conducted during this weekend's State Duma elections — the reverse of official results from inside Russia, where Putin's party took nearly 58% of the vote. The Vote Abroad project, which surveyed almost 15,700 voters at 27 polling stations across 22 countries, put New People at 43%, the Communist Party at 18.3% and United Russia at 5.5%. In 10 countries, including Armenia, Germany and Finland, United Russia failed to clear the 5% threshold required to win Duma seats.
A separate exit poll by opposition movement Vesna and the Progress project, covering 18 stations in 17 countries, put New People first at every location with 47.3%, the Communist Party second at 19.2% and United Russia at 2.8%. Inside Russia, the Central Election Commission reported United Russia winning nearly 58%, the Communist Party at 14%, the LDPR at almost 9% and New People below 8%. "The contrast is indeed very stark," Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Progress project and a former head of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, told Euronews.
"83.5% of those who answered our question on trust do not fully or mostly trust the official results," Zhdanov added. "In purely arithmetic terms, votes cast abroad are hardly going to determine the composition of the Duma," he said. "But they are important: they show a completely different reality and destroy the image of supposed support for the authorities." Many Russians who left the country after the 2022 invasion oppose the war, and the only anti-war party Yabloko was barred from the election on a procedural pretext and excluded from the federal ballot entirely.
Those abroad who opposed the war had no Yabloko option and predominantly voted New People instead, exit poll workers said. "The aim of our civic initiative is to provide a truthful picture of the electoral process abroad," said Irina Kh, part of the active core of Vote Abroad alongside around 15 other activists. "We use no party symbols and have no affiliation with political organisations — we carry out our surveys impartially and independently." The project was launched in 2021 and has conducted exit polls at Russian elections since, including the 2024 presidential vote.
Volunteers use anonymous written questionnaires of five questions, drawn up and analysed by professional sociologists, including at a German university. The project is self-funded. Voting abroad was largely calm, exit poll workers said, in contrast to reports from inside Russia of ballot stuffing and obstruction of observers.
CEC chair Ella Pamfilova said only two cases of ballot stuffing had been recorded nationwide, a claim independent monitors disputed. Russia's ambassador to Switzerland branded exit poll participants "anti-Russian agitators" and "representatives of foreign organisations designated as undesirable in Russia." In Geneva, local authorities required volunteers to stand at least 150 metres from the consulate entrance after bowing to the consulate's wishes. In Bern, a Russian embassy guard approached one volunteer during the day, pointed at the passport of the person being interviewed and jabbed a finger at her computer screen — apparently intended as a warning about consequences.
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