United Russia said 86 war participants would get State Duma seats. Then the news was withdrawn at the party’s request.
Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti took down an article that had reported 86 war participants would receive State Duma mandates as members of the United Russia faction, according to the election results. The independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo drew attention to the deletion.
Vladimir Yakushev, secretary of the party’s general council, said at a press conference how many participants in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had received State Duma mandates:
As for participants in the ”special military operation,” we’re talking about roughly 86 people, so if we’re talking about the State Duma, that’s a serious contribution. In addition, we have two Young Guard members who also won in this election campaign and will receive mandates. But these are still preliminary results, I want to stress that again. Still, we can already see that these mandates will be awarded.
RIA Novosti was among the outlets that published the news with Yakushev’s quote. The article on the state agency’s website now carries the headline “Retracted.” “The wire report headlined ‘Yakushev: 86 SVO participants to receive State Duma mandates as members of the United Russia faction’ is being retracted at the request of United Russia’s press service pending clarification of the data,” the publication states.
After the press conference, Yakushev told the Russian state news agency TASS that 49 war participants would receive State Duma mandates from United Russia.
Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova said 186 war participants and veterans had registered as candidates for the State Duma election. Of those, 110 appeared on political parties’ federal lists, while the other 76 were running in single-member districts. United Russia had announced that 82 war participants were running as candidates from the party.
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