Putin says lines at polling stations 'show that Russia cannot be intimidated.' In Moscow, people waited hours for paper ballots due to a system glitch.

Meduza reports Vladimir Putin's comments of 23 September 2026 thanking Russians for taking part in the State Duma election, which he said the enemy had tried to disrupt, and his statement that lines at polling stations showed Russia could not be intimidated. It reports that long lines formed at Moscow polling stations on 20 September largely because voters could not obtain paper ballots for several hours owing to a malfunction in the electronic voter list system, and that fewer lines formed in response to an opposition call to vote at noon than during the 2024 'Noon Against Putin' action.