It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, September 20, 2026
Nestlé to face retrial over illegal dumping near French bottled water plants
Nestlé Waters is to face a new trial over alleged illegal dumping near its bottled water plants in eastern France, after an appeals court reinstated key scientific evidence excluded from the original proceedings.
A court of appeal in Nancy ruled on Thursday that the Nestlé Waters case should be sent back to the city’s criminal court for a fresh hearing, overturning a March decision that had removed a series of test results and expert reports from the case.
A newly constituted court will now hear the case, although no date has yet been set. The ruling also means there will be no verdict on 7 October, as had previously been expected following the first trial in March.
The court will also decide whether further expert assessments should be commissioned.
Disputed evidence
The case concerns several large unauthorised waste sites near Nestlé Waters’ bottling plants at Vittel and Contrexéville in the Vosges region.
The Swiss food and drinks giant is accused of having operated or managed dumps containing large quantities of plastic and other waste close to the sites where it bottles mineral water.
Lawyers representing environmental groups say the affected area is equivalent to “seven football pitches covered with 10 metres of waste”.
The waste itself dates mainly from the 1960s and 1970s, when the factories were under previous ownership. Nestlé acquired the sites in 1992.
When the company's first trial opened in Nancy in March, however, the court excluded a significant part of the prosecution evidence.
Among the documents removed from proceedings were analyses of microplastic contamination and reports by specialist engineering firms commissioned by prosecutors during the investigation.
Many of the findings were unfavourable to Nestlé Waters, with some analyses recording what investigators described as “incomparable” levels of microplastics in soil and water near four unauthorised landfill sites.
Their exclusion left the court largely considering studies commissioned and financed by Nestlé itself – something environmental groups argued created an imbalance in the evidence.
Troubled waters
Both prosecutors and the civil parties appealed against the criminal court's March decision to exclude the material. A lawyer representing environmental organisations raised the issue during a hearing at the court of appeal in June.
Thursday's ruling effectively restarts the case, allowing the disputed material to be considered when Nestlé Waters returns to court. The decision was in line with the position of the advocate general, who had backed the reinstatement of the contested evidence.
Nestlé Waters stressed that allowing the reports back into the case did not mean the appeals court had accepted their conclusions.
“Nestlé Waters regrets today’s ruling,” the company said in a statement, adding that the decision to reinstate the analyses “in no way constitutes an endorsement of their scientific reliability”.
Last year, an inquiry by the French Senate concluded that the government covered up a scandal over the treatment of mineral water by Nestlé, including the iconic Perrier brand.
Nestlé Waters admitted in 2024 to using banned treatments – including UV disinfection and activated carbon filters – on some of its bottled water brands to meet food safety standards.
European law stipulates that natural mineral waters cannot be disinfected or treated in any way that alters its characteristics.
Tense Berlin election finale: who is to emerge strongest in the capital?
The Left and the CDU are vying for first place, with the AfD and the Greens trailing and the SPD suffering heavy losses. An overview of parties, leading candidates, key issues and possible coalitions.
On Sunday, Berliners will vote to elect a new state parliament, the Abgeordnetenhaus, alongside the regional vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The race is wide open: the Left party and the CDU are neck and neck in the latest polls, both at around 20-23%, with the AfD at 18% and the Greens at 16% close behind. The SPD, with 10-12%, is now clearly below its 2023 result.
That means it is also unclear what the political landscape will look like after the vote.
According to recent surveys, the current black-red coalition of the CDU and SPD would no longer have a majority. The CDU’s campaign has also shifted: instead of incumbent Governing Mayor Kai Wegner, finance and culture senator Stefan Evers is running as lead candidate. Wegner announced in the summer, after months of criticism of his handling of the January power outage, that he would not run again as the party’s frontrunner.
On policy, the CDU is focusing on law and order, a more capable state and economic growth. To that end, both the police and the judiciary are to be strengthened, approval procedures accelerated, and public administration digitised.
Based on current polls, several coalition options are on the table, including a government of the Left, Greens, and SPD, or a CDU-Green-SPD alliance. Whether such constellations materialise will also depend on which parties ultimately make it into the Abgeordnetenhaus.
In the latest ZDF projection (source in German) published on 11 September, the Left stands at 23%, the CDU at 21%, the AfD at 17%, the Greens at 16%, and the SPD at 10%. On that basis, both a Left-Green-SPD alliance and a CDU-Green-SPD coalition would have a numerical majority. The current BerlinTREND (source in German) survey by Infratest dimap paints a similar picture: the Left at 21%, CDU at 20%, AfD at 18%, Greens at 16%, and SPD at 12%.
SPD fighting to stay in government
The Social Democrats have now slipped to between 10 and 12% in the polls. In 2023, they were still at 18.4%. Their lead candidate is Berlin SPD co-chair Steffen Krach from Lower Saxony, who is under investigation by the Hanover public prosecutor over allegations linked to a donation of 9,900 euros to the Berlin SPD. Krach rejects the accusations and is continuing his campaign under the slogan "Wieder Berlin" – "Berlin again" – despite them.
Substantively, the SPD, like most other parties, is focusing on affordable housing, investment and a functioning infrastructure. In its manifesto, it promises 100,000 new homes over the next legislative period and aims to increase the share of social housing in new-build projects from 30% to 50%. It also plans to invest in roads and bridges, schools, hospitals, and public transport.
Rents, housing shortages and new-build projects are among the top issues in Berlin’s 2026 election campaign Copyright AP. All rights reserved.
Affordable housing is also a central campaign issue for the other parties. According to Berlin’s Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing, more than 100,000 new homes are missing in the capital. On top of that comes demand for additional housing for the roughly 200,000 people expected to move to Berlin by 2040. This translates into an average need for around 20,000 new homes per year in the coming years.
The CDU is relying above all on faster construction and more homeownership. The Greens place greater emphasis on housing oriented towards the common good. The Left, by contrast, is calling for large housing portfolios to be brought into public ownership. The AfD and FDP reject this approach and likewise want to prioritise private construction and less regulation.
The Left eyes the Red Town Hall
The Left has gained significant support since the 2023 election. At the time, it stood at 12.2%; in current polls, it is around 21-23% and is now one of the two strongest parties in the race.
Lead candidate Elif Eralp is campaigning primarily on rents and social policy. The Left is calling, among other things, for the socialisation of large housing stocks and stronger tenant protections. In public transport, social benefits and climate policy, the party also wants the state to play a bigger role.
Campaign poster of the Left’s lead candidate, Elif Eralp Euronews
The Berlin Left’s campaign is, however, overshadowed by a debate over how the party deals with antisemitism and the Middle East conflict. One trigger was a performance by rapper Dahabflex at a campaign event organised by the Neukölln district branch of the Left at the end of August, where he chanted "Yalla Yalla Intifada, Westbank, Palestine, Gaza" and "Death to the IDF" (death to the Israeli armed forces).
CDU lead candidate Evers accused Eralp of not acting decisively enough against antisemitic tendencies in her party. Eralp rejects that and stresses her commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting Jewish life. The Berlin Left has also adopted its own guidelines on dealing with antisemitism and says it wants to protect Jewish life in the city. As T-Online reports, the party’s Berlin executive invited the Neukölln district spokespeople to an extraordinary meeting at which "a unanimous decision was taken that Dahabflex’s performance was a mistake and that we reject all forms of violence", according to Eralp.
AfD also on course to double its vote in Berlin?
The AfD has also made strong gains in Berlin. In the 2023 repeat election, it took 9.1%; it now stands at 17-18% in most polls. In the latest BerlinTREND survey by Infratest dimap, it reached 18%, making it the third-strongest force behind the Left and the CDU. Compared with 2023, it has almost doubled its share of the vote.
AfD lead candidate Kristin Brinker Euronews
The party is once again led by Kristin Brinker, who is running as the AfD's top candidate for the third time. As with the Greens, however, Brinker is not widely known. In the current Infratest dimap poll (source in German), around two-thirds of respondents say they do not know Brinker, or do not know her well enough to judge her. The picture is similar to the Greens’ Werner Graf.
In the campaign, the AfD is focusing above all on migration and internal security. The party wants a halt to the admission of asylum seekers in Berlin and the "immediate deportation of all of the up to 20,000 people in Berlin who are required to leave the country".
For subsidised and state-owned housing, the AfD wants to allocate it using a points system so that it primarily benefits Berliners who have lived in the city for a long time and work in "system-relevant professions" such as the police, fire service, health care, or refuse collection. Otherwise, building should be encouraged by scrapping the property transfer tax or speeding up planning approvals.
Despite its high poll ratings, the party remains excluded from any role in government: CDU, SPD, Greens and Left all rule out forming a coalition with the AfD.
Will the Greens be the kingmakers?
The Greens are currently polling at around 16
5, clearly below their 2023 result of 18.4%. Nevertheless, they could play a crucial role in forming a government: both a Left-Green-SPD alliance and a CDU-Green-SPD coalition would have a mathematical majority in current projections.
Lead candidate Werner Graf is trying to present the Greens in a less confrontational way during the campaign. He wants to avoid the major rows of recent years, such as the dispute over Friedrichstrasse. Graf himself told rbb that the Greens "have learned from that". Instead of sharply polarising demands, he is adopting a more pragmatic tone and presenting himself as someone who can bring different parties together.
In the election arena, shortly before polling day, both the Left's lead candidate, Eralp, and the SPD frontrunner, Krach, explicitly courted cooperation with the Greens. Graf signalled openness to an alliance and called for a "progressive government". He rules out any cooperation with the AfD.
Volt, FDP and BSW battling to enter parliament
Alongside the larger parties, Volt, the FDP and the BSW are also competing to enter the Abgeordnetenhaus. For all three, the five% threshold is the decisive hurdle. Volt is standing in a Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus election for the first time and is focusing above all on digitalisation, administrative reform and faster housing construction.
The FDP wants to return to the state parliament with its lead candidate, Christoph Meyer, and is campaigning for less regulation, more private investment, and homeownership. In the final stretch, Meyer is also backed by party chairman Wolfgang Kubicki, who has appeared with him in Berlin on several occasions.
Campaign posters for BSW, Volt and the FDP in Berlin Euronews
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is polling at 3-4% and therefore has to fight to clear the threshold for the Abgeordnetenhaus. The party is running in a Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus election for the first time and is led by Alexander King and Michael Lüders.
In this campaign, foreign and peace policies are playing an unusually prominent role for a state election. King is calling for an end to sanctions against Russia and for negotiations with Moscow. BSW also wants to improve relations with Russia and is targeting Russian-speaking Berliners. The party, moreover, wants to prevent the Russian House on Friedrichstrasse, operated by Russia, from being closed.
Vandalism: campaign posters damaged
During the current election campaign in Berlin, the police have recorded more than 1,300 incidents of damaged campaign posters between 2 August and 16 September.
Election posters in Berlin: AfD posters particularly often affected by vandalism Euronews
Posters belonging to the AfD are particularly frequently affected, according to Bild, which asked the Berlin police for figures: across the city, 801 cases of criminal damage to AfD posters have been recorded so far. Next come the CDU with 148 cases, independent candidates or lists with 102, the Left with 95, the SPD with 88, Alliance 90/The Greens with 37, the FDP with 30, BSW with 16, Volt with 13 and the ÖDP with two cases.
INTERVIEW
As far right gains ground in Germany, Berlin election tests Europe's centre
Berliners go to the polls on Sunday to elect the city-state’s parliament and district councils, in a vote taking place just two weeks after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured a historic victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The implications could extend beyond Germany.
The AfD won 43.8 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September, falling three seats short of an absolute majority in the state parliament.
The result has intensified debate about the strength of the democratic centre in Germany and beyond.
The AfD has received support from figures associated with United States President Donald Trump, including alt-right billionaire Elon Musk, while also positioning itself alongside Hungary’s former leader Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Against this backdrop, what does the AfD’s breakthrough mean for Germany, Europe and the future of the political right?
RFI spoke to Bernd Hüttemann, secretary-general of the German chapter of the European Movement, a non-partisan civil society organisation that promotes European integration.
RFI: Berlin’s elections are taking place shortly after the AfD’s historic victory in Saxony-Anhalt. What does that result mean for German politics?
Bernd Hüttemann: It is something very dark, because it has really started a new era in Germany. For the first time, there is a right-wing extremist party that could potentially take power at state level.
Saxony-Anhalt is a small state, but the Länder [federal states] are powerful in Germany. They are responsible for areas such as education, policing, security and a large part of public administration. So the result will change things at that level.
It will not necessarily change the balance of power at federal level, because Saxony-Anhalt has relatively few votes in the Bundesrat [upper house of the German parliament]. But if the democratic majority becomes nervous and starts following extremist ideas, that can become very dangerous.
AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund speaks in front of a poster reading "It starts here" at a rally after the Saxony-Anhalt regional elections in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, 6 September 2026. @ AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
RFI: If you look at the map of the 2025 election results, it appears that AfD is most popular in former East Germany. How do you explain people who lived under an authoritarian communist system now voting for an extreme-right party?
BH: There was always an East-West divide. As a young West German in the 1980s, I saw a great deal of propaganda saying that East Germans were different from us. They were portrayed as living under a very bad social system and an undemocratic regime.
After the Berlin Wall came down, the divide became more complicated. Around one-third of East Germans moved to the West, particularly young people, women, skilled workers and liberal-minded citizens.
At the same time, many West Germans moved east and took senior positions. Judges, professors and many other professionals came from the West. It is not pleasant for people in the east to feel that there is a ruling class imposed from outside.
East German workers build up a section of the Berlin wall, on 15 August 1961. @ AFP
That does not mean that all of these voters are anti-democratic. But many people have little experience of taking social responsibility outside the state. They do not want to join political parties or associations. They simply want an easier life, especially after the hardship they experienced before the Wall fell.
So this is not only about an East-West divide. It is about whether authoritarian ideas can find fertile ground. That is certainly more likely in eastern Germany.
RFI: Do you believe Germany’s political diversity can act as a safeguard?
BH: Yes. Germany is a very diverse country. It contains Catholic, Protestant, atheist, Muslim and East German traditions, among many others. Its political system is also complex: it is federal, decentralised and based on cooperation with many social forces.
That makes Germany complicated and slow, but it also makes it more resilient. I would not be excessively concerned. The important thing now is for democratic movements and parties to stay together.
RFI: How much influence do Trump-style populist politics and US-based propaganda have on the AfD and German politics more broadly?
BH: The AfD has a problem here. Particularly in eastern Germany, there is not a strong appetite for American influence. On the other hand, the party has very few friends. It has Vladimir Putin. Viktor Orban congratulated the party. There are links with MAGA supporters and with Elon Musk.
The party’s psychology is perhaps this: nobody likes us, the public rejects us and everybody is trying to exclude us. So we align ourselves with people who are even more extreme.
But it could backfire. People in western Germany, as well as many liberals in the east, do not necessarily like this association.
US billionaire Elon Musk attends the AfD's election campaign kickoff in Halle via video link, on 25 January 2025. @ AP - Sebastian Willnow
RFI: Marine Le Pen is leading polls ahead of France’s 2027 presidential election. Could the AfD’s breakthrough influence the discourse here?
BH: The fear of Germany that existed during my childhood is not as widespread as it once was. But now there is a kind of flashback. People are asking: Germany was one of the most liberal countries in Europe in recent decades, including on issues such as refugees. Is it now showing its ugly face again?
That may also explain Marine Le Pen’s efforts to distance herself strategically from the AfD in the European Parliament. There was a well-known meeting in Paris with Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, where Weidel reportedly entered through a back door to avoid being photographed with Le Pen.
If France, a proud nation, moves towards the right, it will want to draw a clear line between itself and German extremism.
But that is not good for Europe, because we do not need a return to nationalism. We do not need national answers to nationalist movements in Germany. We need European answers – particularly when it comes to war, China and the United States. Europe has to remain united, and it is also developing closer links with Canada.
BROWN AND RED FASCISM
Germany’s AfD asks Kremlin to turn Russian gas back on, Hungary prepares to turn it off
Germany's far-right AfD party has proposed to start talks with the Kremlin to turn Russian gas imports back on next year, while Hungary says it will turn them off. / bne IntelliNews
Berlin and Budapest are moving in opposite directions. Germany’s AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) riding high on a recent election victory is in talks with the Kremlin on turning Russian gas supplies back on, while Budapest, previously one of Russia’s few allies in Europe, says it will cut off supplies completely next year.
The AfD has opened talks with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s go-top man on international business on restoring Russian gas supplies to Europe’s largest economy next year and potentially reopening the Nord Stream pipelines, Reuters sources report.
The proposed meeting between Dmitriev, who has also been acting as the Kremlin’s special envoy in Ukraine ceasefire negotiations, and AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla could take place as early as March 2027, according to Reuters. Israel, the United Arab Emirates and India are being considered as venues. The organisers say a meeting would only take place after a peace framework had been agreed between Russia and Ukraine.
Organisers have also discussed bringing the other US special envoys into the talks, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. However, a senior US official told Reuters that neither had been informed or invited to the proposed meeting yet.
The proposal is likely to cause a storm in Brussels, which has been revving up to ban imports of Russian gas completely by January and more recently has also suggested a ban on Russian LNG too, on which the EU has been heavily dependent this year as it races to fill gas storage tanks which are at record low levels ahead of the start of the heating season, now only two months away. However, with gas prices double what they were pre-war, a permanent change, the Germany economic model has been broken, and the country is slowly deindustrialising.
Russia accounted for 52% of Germany’s gas imports in 2021, according to Germany’s Federal Network Agency. Nord Stream 1 deliveries progressively collapsed during 2022, reaching zero by the beginning of September that year after an explosion destroyed three of the four strands of the twin pipelines Nord Stream 1 & 2. The surviving strand was sealed by Danish authorities last year and can be turned on within a day, Putin reminded partners in recent remarks. That strand could carry around 25bcm of gas and is already full of the technical gas that would allow it to be immediately restarted.
The AfD has increasingly made restoring access to Russian energy part of its economic platform, which contributed to its landslide victory in the recent Saxon-Anhalt regional elections in eastern Germany. Weidel told Reuters in June that Germany should end its boycott of Russian oil and gas, and has described “cheap energy from Russia” as “the secret of the success of ‘Made in Germany’.”
For his part, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed “not to give one inch” in his support for Ukraine and resistance to Russian pressure. However, with his popularity having fallen to 14% in the last poll and facing another crushing defeat in two more regional elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin this weekend, it is possible that Merz’s CDU will not manage to clear the 5% of the vote threshold that could trigger the collapse of his coalition, or see the Chancellor ousted.
The Nord Stream pipeline issue is especially poignant as it makes landfall in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Recent polling cited by Reuters puts the AfD well in the lead in those elections with 37%, compared with 35% for the governing Social Democrats, but the CDU is polling in single digits in the region.
Most of the German establishment is opposed to restarting Russian gas imports and even if the AfD wins control of another region, they have no voice in the Bundesrat and no power to actually close a deal with Gazprom that operates the pipeline. The announcement of the talks remains little more than an electoral strategy not a business deal.
“Germany cannot become dependent on Russia again,” said Michael Kellner, a Green MP who was responsible for German energy policy during the crisis following the interruption of Russian gas supplies.
“We cannot repeat the mistakes of the energy crisis,” he said. “It cost us €50bn. We cannot want to go back to that. It would be treason. Putin is using the AfD to his own ends.”
However, Roderich Kiesewetter, an MP from Merz’s Christian Democrats, told Reuters that the talks could strengthen voices within his own party that favour a return to Russian gas.
“The AfD is on Russia’s side, willing to betray both Ukraine and Germany. Russia uses energy, especially Nord Stream, as a hybrid weapon for military purposes. Reopening Nord Stream would be a disaster for European security and isolate Germany.”
The politics of restarting Russian gas imports stink. The economics of turning the pipelines back on make perfect sense. EU gas storage was only 68.84% full on September 17, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe, while Germany’s stocks were considerably lower at 56.02% - about 20pp lower than they were a year ago at this point in the year. Under EU rules, the tanks are supposed to be 90% full on November 1, and the chances of that happening are now zero. Germany tanks will be only 67% full by the deadline, according to IntelliNewsLambda calculations and the price of gas has already tripled since the start of the restocking season in May to €80/MWh and is likely to go higher say market participants.
The European Commission (EC) remains committed to cutting off gas imports completely, despite the gas shortage and soaring prices. New regulations were adopted in January banning new short-term contracts that went into effect in April. Imports under long-term Russian LNG contracts are due to stop from January 2027 and long-term pipeline imports from September 30, 2027, although the pipeline deadline can be postponed until November 1 if storage targets are not met.
Hungary bails on Russian gas supplies
In a remarkable parallel development, Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar announced on the same day that Hungary will end its imports of Russian gas completely, backtracking from earlier comments after his election that Hungary would continue to buy Russian methane for now and reversing the policies of his predecessor Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban rebelled against European sentiment and maintained good relations with the Kremlin throughout his career and was amongst the most resistant to severing energy links with Moscow. Now Magyar is allying with Brussels and says he wants to shut down the pipelines arriving in Hungary as soon as the same autumn 2027 deadline.
Economy and Energy Minister István Kapitány told Telex that Hungary was working on “alternative supplies” and believed the country could obtain sufficient non-Russian gas by next October if current plans proceeded as expected. He said Budapest was in discussions over additional LNG supplies and potential imports from Romania.
The change would be substantial. According to the European Commission’s 2026 country report, Russia supplied 74% of Hungary’s imported gas in 2025 and more than 90% of its imported oil. Russian fossil-fuel imports were equivalent to 2.1% of Hungarian GDP.
One important potential source is Romania’s Neptun Deep Black Sea development, being developed by OMV Petrom (BVB:SNP) and Romgaz (BVB:SNG), which each hold 50%. The €4bn project remains on schedule to produce first gas in 2027 and is expected eventually to add about 8bn cubic metres a year to Romanian gas production.
Hungarian companies are also signing longer-term LNG contracts and will need to reserve sufficient import and transport capacity through neighbouring countries, Kapitány said.
The apparent reversal therefore has an important qualification: Hungary’s timetable largely reflects a legally binding EU phase-out rather than a unilateral decision by Budapest to abandon Russian energy. But like the AfD’s mooted talks with the Kremlin, Magyar’s announcement probably has more to do with politics and energy security policy.
One of Moscow’s traditionally closest energy partners inside the EU is now building the infrastructure and contracts needed to live without Russian gas. At the same time, a German party whose support has risen sharply is putting the resumption of that trade back onto the political agenda.'
Russians vote for new parliament after campaign marked by near silence
Russians began voting on Friday in three days of parliamentary elections to choose the 450 members of the State Duma, after a campaign with little public debate or television coverage. More than four years into the war in Ukraine, candidates have also had few opportunities to challenge Kremlin policies.
Russia has barely appeared to be in election mode, with minimal coverage on state-controlled television.
The low-key campaign is deliberate, political analysts told RFI.
“The Kremlin has carried out a sort of special operation around this election campaign, instructing the media under its control to drastically reduce their coverage of the elections,” Alexander Morozov, a Russian political scientist and researcher at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, told RFI.
The aim is to avoid adding to uncertainty among Russians after years of conflict, Morozov argued.
“The war has been going on for a long time and the population feels a great deal of uncertainty about the future,” he said.
An official in the presidential administration called for the campaign to have a “therapeutic” character – designed to reassure rather than stir political debate, Morozov said.
Issues that might otherwise have dominated an election campaign – including military losses, the economic cost of the conflict, fears of further mobilisation and questions over what follows the war – have received limited attention.
Candidates themselves are also operating within narrow boundaries.
“They are not allowed to criticise military operations, the conduct of the war or the Kremlin,” said Nikolai Petrov, a political scientist at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre.
“They may only denounce certain failings on the part of the authorities, criticise them for not carrying out Vladimir Putin’s orders quickly enough, or raise local issues.”
Opposition candidates have faced a series of court challenges and disqualifications during the campaign.
The liberal Yabloko party – Russia’s only registered party to have openly campaigned against the war – has faced much of the pressure. Russia’s Supreme Court cancelled the registration of its nationwide list of candidates in August, citing electoral-law violations including alleged copyright infringements and funding issues. The ruling was upheld on appeal.
Individual candidates have also been removed from races.
Yabloko candidate Dmitry Smirnov in Nizhny Novgorod had his registration cancelled following a dispute over a photograph of late Motorhead singer Lemmy Kilmister. A German cross worn by the musician in the image was judged by an expert in the case to resemble Nazi symbolism.
Another Yabloko candidate was barred following posts containing Facebook and Instagram logos without the required reference to their parent company Meta, which Russia has designated an “extremist” organisation.
Other cases have involved photographs of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny or references to organisations associated with him that have been banned by Russian authorities.
Independent monitors and media have documented dozens of opposition candidates being removed or prevented from standing in federal and regional elections, many over alleged displays of “extremist” symbols. War and the ballot
Yabloko had called for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine, a position that distinguished it from the other registered parliamentary parties.
The authorities were less concerned about Yabloko winning seats than about allowing the election campaign to become a measure of support for ending the war, Petrov said.
“The Kremlin was not worried that a few Yabloko candidates might get into the Duma,” he said. “It feared that their appeal might elicit a positive response and show that support for a ceasefire was not as marginal as it wanted people to believe.”
Although Yabloko’s federal list has been excluded, a small number of its candidates are still standing in individual constituencies. Reuters reported this week that the party remains the only registered political organisation openly campaigning against the war.
United Russia, the party closely associated with President Vladimir Putin, currently dominates the State Duma, while the other parties represented in parliament have broadly backed the Kremlin’s conduct of the war.
The vote is also about shaping the next parliament around the political order that has emerged during the conflict, Morozov said.
“The aim is to form a Duma whose members would present themselves, alongside Vladimir Putin, as the architects of victory over Ukraine,” he said.
The composition of parliament is only part of what is at stake, Petrov argued.
“These elections are about the government’s image and the reaffirmation of its authority,” he said.
Voting continues until Sunday after a campaign that has offered Russians relatively little public debate over the issue that has transformed their country more than any other over the past four years – the war in Ukraine.
