On March 6, the Telegram channel Faridaily reported that the Kremlin plans to add roughly 100 Ukraine War veterans to the 450-member State Duma when Russia holds its next parliamentary elections in the fall of 2026. Veterans with the Kremlin’s endorsement will reportedly run as candidates from the political party United Russia, though Faridaily’s sources noted concerns that soldiers-turned-politicians could prove unpredictable and out of step with the legislature’s incumbents. At the same time, other sources speculated that the veterans tapped for Duma seats will be familiar politicians (for example, deputy governors and other regional figures) who served only briefly in the war (if at all).
Last year, large numbers of Ukraine War veterans sought public office in regional assemblies, but almost none of them passed United Russia’s primaries. In Moscow, all 14 military candidates failed to advance. Meduza podcast host Vladislav Gorin spoke to special correspondent Andrey Pertsev for more insights into Russian veterans’ role in electoral politics. That conversation is summarized below.
However ambitious the Kremlin decides to be with its integration of veterans in electoral politics, it’s doubtful that unpredictable, undereducated outsiders will be permitted any real power. Both to date and according to the plan reported by Faridaily, veterans would be kept from the executive branch, “where the money is,” and relegated to “the powerless representative branch.”
Pertsev argued that flooding the State Duma with veterans wouldn’t require major innovations in elections; Russia is already grooming future political elites by sending them on brief tours of duty (far from combat), and there’s still plenty of time to add some military sheen to a politician’s reputation, if need be. He cited the examples of acting Tambov Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov and acting Jewish Autonomous Region Governor Maria Kostyuk — two established politicians whose superiors proclaimed their military credentials before their latest appointments. (Pertsev said Pervyshov’s new job in Tambov could be viewed as a demotion from his mayorship in Krasnodar, while Kostyuk apparently owes her position to past work with a foundation run by Putin’s niece, Anna Tsivilyova.)
Since Putin has signaled his interest in seeing more former soldiers enter politics, the veterans who have reached public office are typically the same local elites whose careers were already on this trajectory. “And I’ve heard that they try to place them somewhere without significant financial resources, where they can’t really mess up, fail in their role, or cause major problems,” Pertsev told Meduza, explaining that outsiders tend to rock the boat, especially at the local level, when learning how little is left to municipal governments once federal and regional officials have taken their cut of public revenues. (In the town of Sosnovka, officials even threatened to redeploy a veteran who became mayor after he spoke out too loudly against local corruption.)
### ‘Everyone is afraid’ The Kremlin says it wants Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine to take up ‘leading positions’ in government — so where are they?### ‘Everyone is afraid’ The Kremlin says it wants Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine to take up ‘leading positions’ in government — so where are they?
Vladislav Gorin suggested that sources speaking to the media about the Kremlin’s alleged State Duma plans so far ahead of the next elections could mean that the initiative is doomed. Maybe the Putin administration will decide not to “buy into” the idea? Gorin disagreed, saying that the plan is appealing to the Kremlin (Putin and First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko are both infatuated with “round, impressive numbers”) and easy to implement (given that many existing elites already present themselves as veterans).
The State Duma’s incoming “veteran class” could even materialize as a performance staged for Vladimir Putin. “They could create a separate little world for Putin,” explained Pertsev:
He clearly imagines that this engages the entire country, that everyone is caught up in it, whereas in reality, it’s just a set of props built around him. They could stage some kind of simulation of career advancement for participants in the “special military operation,” while nothing of the sort is actually happening. For instance, they could pass off so-called volunteers in this process. They could even stuff the quota with bureaucrats working in the so-called new territories — the annexed regions.
In other words, Putin’s personal fixations and grasp of Russians’ priorities — not any genuine popular demand — likely drive the Kremlin’s veterans’ initiative in the State Duma, Pertsev told Meduza. Despite the president’s current preoccupation with soldiers, Gorin said he thinks Putin expects veterans to accept business as usual once the war in Ukraine subsides. “I assume [his] task after the war will be precisely to sweep its consequences under the rug and create the illusion that it’s all in the past. ‘Yes, of course, we respect you, but, dear citizen, please don’t get distracted — don’t bother your compatriots.’”