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Ella Pamfilova provided a detailed report on the preparation and organisation of the elections at various levels held across all Russian regions.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ms Pamfilova, elections took place in all 89 regions of the Russian Federation, with 2,200 election campaigns held at all levels: municipal, regional, and federal.

This was a huge undertaking, involving not only the organisation of everything related to the elections but also the need to overcome challenges imposed on us from abroad and manage significant risks. Regrettably, we – and indeed many others – know that this process came at a cost to election commission staff. The entire country is aware of this.

Ms Pamfilova, I would like to thank you and all election commission staff at every level for this work, which is vitally important for the country and was carried out to the highest standard, particularly in terms of organisation.

It is especially significant that the elections were also conducted to the highest legal standard. All election commission members adhered to both the spirit and the letter of the Russian law. These elections have undoubtedly reaffirmed the legitimacy of all executive and representative bodies of power in the Russian Federation – a matter of particular importance in the current climate. Thank you very much.

Chairperson of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova: Mr President, allow me to thank you on behalf of my team for the timely decisions and instructions you issued. This enabled us, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defence, the National Guard, the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of the Interior, the Emergencies Ministry and other agencies, to do everything possible to ensure that voting took place safely, even under these extreme conditions. This is of great importance. Thank you very much. Indeed, we managed to prevent many incidents.

Given that this campaign, naturally, had many distinctive features, its fundamental and unquestionable priority was ensuring security. At the same time, Mr President, what did we achieve? We succeeded in accomplishing an extremely difficult task – finding ways to preserve all our fundamental principles of openness and transparency that we had developed over many years for peacetime conditions. Thus, we have now successfully preserved them.

I would note that no one – apart, of course, from our enemies – cast doubt on the results; it is clear that in the West, our elections were rejected a priori, before they had even taken place, but we pay no heed to that. What matters is that the people supported these elections and understood how significant they were and how much they serve to strengthen the country.

This is unprecedented for us: for instance, for the first time since 2003, at the level of the Central Election Commission we did not record a single dissenting opinion from Commission members representing parliamentary parties, including the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. There had always been such opinions in the past, but this time there was not a single one. This serves as further confirmation of the highest level of legitimacy and of the recognition of the elections by our people and by all political parties.

What else is highly important? Perhaps, one of the key features is that the State Duma has been renewed by half and has become four years younger. But the most important feature is that, for the first time, 46 participants in and veterans of the special military operation were elected to it. Moreover, if we look at elections at all levels, the figure is highly impressive: 655 participants in the special military operation were elected. Of these, 573 were from United Russia, 14 from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 11 from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, 9 from A Just Russia and 5 from New People. In other words, participants in the special military operation were elected from every parliamentary party.

I would like to note that servicemen in general, and especially those serving on the line of engagement, proved to be, I would say, the most active participants in the electoral process: as candidates, as voters and as members of our commissions. This is because they know what they are fighting for. They are far from indifferent. They understand what the quality of governance will be in their home region.

This is worth a great deal, and we, too, did our best – even on the line of engagement and in the zone of active military operations – to ensure that those who wished to vote were able to do so.

The temporary electoral commissions were formed from servicemen themselves. This was done with one very important condition: that the voting process itself – and we did everything to that end – would not become an additional source of danger for our fighters, who are already in a difficult situation.

There was another thing that made this election special. As I have already said, this election shattered all kinds of records. Let me tell you about seven such records.

First, there was record-high voter turnout compared to the three election cycles we had since 2016. It almost reached 60 percent and amounted to 59.08 percent.

There was a record-high number of observers, with 336,702 people representing candidates and parties, and there were observers from the civil society too. For comparison, there were 264,000 observers in 2016, which means that there was a substantial increase.

It is important to note that very few candidates were denied registration. The figure was below one percent at 0.93 percent. This was also a record.

Mr President, we have been working hard on youth outreach and have been acting on a system-wide basis and in a consistent manner to ensure that young people take part in electoral processes. This year, our volunteers and observers, who are mostly young people, also set a record. We had over 50,000 volunteers at the voting stations. These young people volunteered to help those who needed assistance when taking part in the election, which included special military operation participants returning from the front, the wounded, the elderly, and mothers with small children, among others. Everyone who needed help and had to be assisted when casting their ballots had different means at their disposal to request this kind of assistance. There were those who needed help and those who could provide it, and all we did was offer a platform for connecting them, and this was something that truly made a difference.

Of course, I must also mention the scale at which online voting took place. This was the first time that 33 regions took part in online voting, and more than 7 million voted this way. Moreover, we had another first while working on ensuring security and holding the election in these extreme conditions. We remained committed to building up our innovative capacity. This was the first time we tested – in the Nenets Autonomous Area – a new format for administering the remote online voting procedure by using the low-orbit satellite group for data transfers. We relied on Bureau 1440, a Russian entity which, as you know, enables Russian voters to cast their ballots in locations with unstable or poor internet service. This is something of great importance.

Of course, there was another major record I must mention. The number of international observers and experts who came to Russia reached unprecedented heights. This is more than just a national record. In fact, this is a record for the entire international community. By the way, on the topic of isolation. There are those who keep talking about all this isolation. But I can tell you that among the observers who came to Russia, all continents were represented, including Europe. There were at least 22 European countries. Observers came from the United States, Australia, South Korea, Great Britain, Germany, France, Norway, Spain, Serbia, Georgia, Romania and other countries.

You know, I would like to express my special gratitude to these courageous people who came from unfriendly countries. Why? Because this was their deliberate choice. They knew what consequences this could have for them, considering the so-called freedom of speech they have in their countries. They came here regardless. And they have our immense gratitude for doing this. This was also the first time – so another first for us – that they had an opportunity to observe the election not only within our borders, but also internationally. They were able to observe how our voters took part in the election abroad. This option was available in 20 out of 152 countries where our diplomats – and I also thank them – opened 333 polling stations to enable those who wanted to take part in the election but were abroad during the election to cast their ballots.

This really matters considering all the obstacles created by the leaders of unfriendly countries. But all these campaigns and large-scale initiatives concocted by our runaway traitors, together with their western sponsors, were a total failure. They generated so much publicity by calling on our citizens, both outside and primarily inside the country, to spoil their ballots. They wanted people to come to the polling stations, invalidate their ballots and place them in the ballot box. These initiatives were an abysmal failure.

The share of invalid ballots abroad amounted to 2.5 percent. This is an insignificant figure. Inside Russia, this indicator was just slightly above one percent, 1.36 percent. This can be viewed as another indicator of how our people demonstrated their responsibility regarding this election.

One more thing I would like to bring to notice. There was a negative record, as I would describe it, in terms of the escalation and the unprecedented cyber aggression. This is the only way I can describe what happened.

Even compared to the data from the Presidential election, when there was a record-high number of cyberattacks, this time there were even higher indicators. There were 28 million impacts on the Central Election Commission’s digital resources which could cause potential harm, and there were over 14.7 million serious cyber threats during the election from September 17 through 24. There were 13 waves of targeted DDoS attacks which lasted a total of 468 minutes. This is well beyond and above what we had during the presidential campaign, I mean the election of the President.

If we go back to the security topic, it turned out that everything that was done served its purpose. All the preparations we made have proven their worth.

Of course, I would like to express my deepest respect and gratitude to my colleagues at all levels. Thank you for your dedicated attitude and for appreciating these efforts.

What I want to say is that across 11 regions, 75 buildings of district territorial commissions were either damaged or destroyed following missile attacks, shelling incidents, UAV strikes and the like – all these external provocations. I cannot find better words to describe what the criminal Kiev regime has been doing in its agony together with its Western sponsors. Most of these incidents took place in the Zaporozhye and Belgorod regions, as well as in the Lugansk People’s Republic.

For 84 district commissions and two territorial commissions, we knew where they could move. We made all the necessary arrangements ahead of time. In 30 regions of the Russian Federation, we had to switch to backup generators. Quite a few commissions found themselves in this situation.

I would like to thank you once again for the timely measures you instructed us to take. Everything was carried out as planned. I would also like to thank all our colleagues in the security agencies for their well-coordinated work. Of course, our colleagues came under tremendous psychological pressure, including targeted personal threats. These threats were – I hardly know how to describe them – inhumane, vile and despicable. They even threatened children, not just family members or relatives, but children. We recorded 33 such cases. The people behind them can hardly be called human.

Letters purporting to come from me were sent to governors. They looked like official correspondence and demanded an “immediate halt to election preparations.” There were countless such fabricated messages.

Threats were reported in 15 regions, including false reports that polling stations had been mined. Not one of our people wavered. In the Zaporozhye Region, the homes of our colleagues were even marked with red signs to make them clearly identifiable. That was the kind of intimidation they faced. There were also numerous attempts to hack their personal phones, but these attempts failed. We remained vigilant, the system proved resilient, and our people stayed in close contact.

Of course, the most tragic part is that six of our colleagues lost their lives during those days – five women and one man. In the Belgorod Region, three people were killed. There were also fatalities in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions and the Lugansk People’s Republic, where one of our colleagues was killed as well. Naturally, everything possible will be done locally to support their families.

You know, what is truly remarkable is the strength of our people. There were attempts to intimidate them; the relatives of those who had been killed stepped forward to take their places on the commissions. These are people of extraordinary courage. Several of our colleagues were also wounded. For example, our colleague Lazarev from Belgorod – there were two attempts to kill him using drones. The first time, his car was blown up, but he managed to get out just in time. The second time, he sustained minor injuries. Thank God, he is alive and well.

Then there was the incident in the Moscow Region. Can those responsible even be called human? A mother of several children, who also chairs a local polling station commission, was at home when she sustained minor injuries. Yet the following morning, she reported for duty, opened the polling station and organised everything exactly as required. As I have said, these people are made of steel. No one gave in to panic. They carried out the entire campaign calmly, with dignity and exactly as it should have been done.

And in conclusion, I would like to say once again that we have overcome all challenges and threats. Although the election campaign was tense, it went very smoothly and as planned. You know, it was the first time – it was my idea – that every district election commission assigned one of its members, preferably a man, to help law enforcement personnel in matters of fire safety, emergency evacuation, and the prevention of sabotage and threats. This worked very well. Where evacuation was needed, everything went smoothly. We held training exercises beforehand.

While taking all these measures, we do not overlook opportunities to improve our operations. This election campaign offered such an opportunity. We have used it to implement and improve numerous innovations and technologies, including, as I told you, the use of air and sea drones for peaceful purposes in six regions. This time, they were used to transport election materials in Karelia, the Krasnoyarsk and Primorye territories, and the Arkhangelsk, Kemerovo and Sakhalin regions, helping save human resources, money and time. More importantly, it cost us nothing. We analyse the capabilities of large local companies and sign relevant agreements with them that it is a kind of social function they pledge to implement. The same is true for information support. During the election campaign, we use the reserves and resources that are being used in other spheres. All sides readily agree to help us. We are grateful to them for this.

Vladimir Putin: Ms Pamfilova, thank you once again.

I would like to express my gratitude to you and to all those who took part in this process for your courage and hard work, as well as for organising the campaign in strict compliance with Russian legislation.

Thank you very much.

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