Yulia Navalnaya on how to vote against United Russia in the State Duma elections: follow the Smart Voting recommendations in single-member constituencies, and support Yabloko on the party list as the only party on the ballot that is publicly against the war.

Election Day is very near now. Candidate registration has closed and we now know which candidates and which parties will appear on the ballot.

For the past year, we have campaigned together against United Russia, and we've achieved something very important. United Russia's approval rating is at 17 percent, while its anti-rating stands at 30 percent —the highest disapproval rating of any party by a wide margin.

United Russia is Putin's party. It is the party of war. And today, it is the most hated party in the country. That is good news. And it means we have to intensify our campaign against United Russia in these final weeks before the election.

The closer we get to the elections, the more people ask me this question: “But who should we vote for?"

In the State Duma elections, you will get two ballots: one for the party lists, and one for your single-member constituency. For the constituency ballot, we already have a time-proven strategy: Smart Voting, created by Alexei Navalny.

In every constituency, we will recommend the candidate with the best chance of defeating the United Russia nominee and disrupting the Kremlin's plans. As always, we'll publish our recommendations four or five days before the election, based on detailed analysis of the campaigns and the candidates' real prospects. Subscribe to the Smart Voting Telegram bot so you don't miss them.

As for the party-list ballot, as I see it, the choice here is simple. These will be the first parliamentary elections held during the full-scale war. We know that millions of Russians oppose this war. We know there is no more urgent question than how to bring it to an end.

And, at least for now, there is one, and only one, party on the ballot that has publicly and consistently taken an anti-war position. That party is Yabloko.

That is why I believe that supporting Yabloko is both the morally right choice and the politically right one. This now is the moment to put old disagreements aside. And this is the moment to help.

Let's try to ruin the Kremlin's plans. Let's not waste this opportunity this time by arguing with one another. Let's not go on about how Yabloko is far from ideal, or bring up sins from the past. And let's not spend our time speculating about how many votes the authorities will fabricate.

Because something far more important is at stake. In 2026, in the fifth year of the full-scale war, Russians have been stripped of almost every legal way to express their opposition. We should see these elections—however unfair they may be—as the only lawful and safe opportunity many people have had in years to say clearly that they do not support this regime.

You can do that by voting for the party on the ballot that stands against the war.

But voting alone is not enough. We need to campaign. We need to get this message out to everyone we can reach. The fewer votes Putin's party receives, the harder it will be for Putin to continue this war, launch another military draft, and keep plundering the country.

We urge everyone to vote for Yabloko on the party list and to support the Smart Voting candidate in their constituency.