Frontline veterans, Dyuzhev, and Rabinovich are heading to the State Duma. The majority faction will change by a quarter...

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🖨💼Frontline veterans, Dyuzhev, and Rabinovich are heading to the State Duma. The majority faction will change by a quarter — several heavyweight deputies will leave it, including Molotov’s grandson and Volodin’s friend

The long lists of candidates nominated for the first State Duma elections since the start of the war by United Russia have appeared on the party primary website. Several prominent deputies were missing from them at once, and their seats may be taken by generals, “SMO” heroes, and media personalities.

🔹The end of the “Sosny” cooperative. Former deputy speaker Sergei Neverov — a close associate of State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and his neighbor at the premium “Sosny” estate (it figured in Navalny’s investigation) — withdrew his candidacy from the Smolensk Region primaries on May 14. He urged support for 28-year-old war veteran Artyom Kornyuchenkov, but he too withdrew five days later.

🔹Neverov commented laconically: “The district has been surrendered. Yes, politics is not a battlefield: everything here is more sophisticated.” The battlefield has been left, according to sources in the Presidential Administration, to the wealthiest sponsor of A Just Russia, deputy since 1999 Alexander Babakov. Neverov led the United Russia party and faction for more than 15 years and was considered Volodin’s “right hand,” but lost his influence after Kiriyenko arrived in the Kremlin, and in 2024 lost the post of deputy speaker. Most of Volodin’s associates also left the All-Russia People’s Front, and now continue to leave parliament as well. The lists did not include well-known deputy, TV host, and ONF activist Timofei Bazhenov.

🔹Another Duma heavyweight did not file papers for the primaries either — the head of the Duma defense committee Andrei Kartapolov. General Alexander Lapin is aiming for his place; he was accused of failing the defense of Kursk Region. Dismissed from the army, Lapin ended up in the leadership of Svyazinvestneftekhim and was nominated from Tatarstan. The Duma lists also did not include Vyacheslav Nikonov — the grandson of People’s Commissar Molotov, a deputy of four convocations and head of the delegation that visited the U.S. Congress in April.

🔹The army is going into parliament. Several dozen recipients of the Hero of Russia Gold Star and at least nine generals filed for United Russia’s primaries. Among them are Chechen Prime Minister Magomed Daudov, Orenburg Cadet School head Tatyana Mashkovskaya, and former commander of the Terek brigade Andrei Fadyukhin. Overall, about 17% of the roughly 2,000 primary participants are veterans of the “SMO.” The party created separate preferences for them: an additional vote quota in electronic voting and participation in the politician training project “Time of Heroes.”

🔹A change of mask. Instead of actor Vladimir Mashkov, who was the face of United Russia’s campaign in Moscow, that role is now being played by Dmitry Dyuzhev — the “star” of films about the gangster 1990s, Brigada and Zhmurki. In his primary questionnaire, he described in detail his trips to Donbas and “hugs with fighters in dugouts.” Also running in Moscow is Anton Rabinovich — the same man who in 2023 ran for president under the slogan of protecting Jews from pogromists (after the events in Dagestan) and with the desire to “test Russians for tolerance”.