ANALYSIS: Duma elections in occupied territories — the legitimacy Putin cannot buy

ANALYSIS: Duma elections in occupied territories — the legitimacy Putin cannot buy

Introduction: the September 2026 elections, or democracy as stage set

First parliamentary elections since the full-scale invasion

The legislative elections to the Russian State Duma, scheduled for September 2026, will be the first parliamentary elections in Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Under normal circumstances — if Russian democracy can be called normal — these elections would already be remarkable simply for taking place in a country at war for more than four years. But what makes them truly extraordinary is their planned extension to Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia: the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, illegally annexed by Russia in September 2022 in violation of international law.

On June 28, 2026, at a congress of the United Russia party, Vladimir Putin sought to frame these elections within a defensive rhetoric against an opposition presented as external. He claimed that Western countries were attempting to "politically destabilize Russia," having failed to defeat it "on the battlefield." He accused the West of seeking to "agitate the political situation and sow domestic unrest" — without providing any evidence. This defensive rhetoric, deployed in the context of an electoral launch announcement, reveals a deep anxiety within the regime about the outcome of the vote.

Putin's June 28 statement — the admission of a fragility

The speech at the United Russia congress — a defensive register

Vladimir Putin addressed the United Russia party congress on June 28, 2026, fewer than three months before the State Duma elections. His speech was marked by an unusual defensive tone. He claimed that the West, having failed to defeat Russia militarily, was now seeking to destabilize it politically. He repeated allegations — unsupported by evidence — that Ukraine had resorted to "acts of terrorism" because its forces were supposedly withdrawing from the front line. That claim is contradicted by front-line data, where Ukraine had recaptured more territory than it had lost in May 2026 according to commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi — illustrating the gap between the Kremlin's narrative and documented military reality.

The fact that Putin used the United Russia congress — the supposedly triumphant occasion of a campaign launch — to address threats of domestic destabilization is itself revealing. In a secure regime, this type of speech would be delivered to security services, not to a political party's activists. The very public nature of this defensive rhetoric signals that the Kremlin considers preemptive communication a necessary tool to inoculate public opinion against potential criticism around the elections — which presupposes that it anticipates that criticism.

Lavrov, Sobianin, and Lvova-Belova — candidates that say a lot

The United Russia party announced that Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister, Sergey Sobianin, Mayor of Moscow, and Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children's Rights, would represent the party in the upcoming State Duma elections. This trio warrants close attention. Lavrov is the face of Russian diplomacy for decades — his presence on an electoral list is a signal of mobilizing foreign-policy figures to legitimize the regime. Sobianin is a technocrat respected even by moderate critics of the regime — his inclusion aims to attract moderate urban votes.

But it is the inclusion of Maria Lvova-Belova that is most diplomatically significant. In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova for their role in the state-sanctioned deportations of Ukrainian children. Presenting a person under ICC arrest warrant as a candidate to the State Duma is a deliberately provocative gesture toward the international community and international humanitarian law. It is also a domestic political decision signaling to Russia's electoral base that the regime does not submit to Western norms.

Security service pressure to cancel the elections

The FSB and the Rosgvardia push for postponement

One of the most revealing developments around the Duma elections is the pressure exerted by security services themselves to cancel or postpone them. According to sources close to the presidential administration cited by independent Russian media, the FSB (Federal Security Service) and the head of the Rosgvardia (National Guard), Viktor Zolotov, had pressured Putin to delay the vote. This internal pressure from the security institutions — the very ones on which the regime's survival depends — is an alarming indicator for the Kremlin.

The logic behind this pressure is documented by context: in a country where political freedom is severely constrained, security services are best positioned to know the true level of popular discontent. Fragility indicators are multiplying: economic growth slowdown, fuel shortages in dozens of regions, repeated internet outages, increasingly frequent Ukrainian long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory. Independent analysts consulted by the Kyiv Independent estimate that the erosion of the stability long promised by the Kremlin could complicate efforts to mobilize voter support for United Russia.

Support for United Russia — numbers that worry Moscow

Sources cited by the independent Russian outlet Meduza indicated that support for United Russia had fallen to around 35% in some polls. Those figures — if accurate — are historically low for the dominant party of an authoritarian regime normally capable of mobilizing crushing results. They reflect growing war fatigue, economic frustration linked to fuel shortages and inflation, and a progressive disillusionment with promises of quick victory that have not materialized since 2022.

In this context, the decision to go ahead with the elections despite security pressure to cancel them is probably calculated: Putin needs the formal legitimacy that elections provide, even rigged ones. A cancellation would be an admission of vulnerability too visible, giving ammunition to both domestic and international critics. But elections that fail to produce the expected result — a large majority for United Russia — would be politically catastrophic. Hence the pressure from security services to avoid the risk by canceling, and Putin's resistance — preferring to control the result rather than avoid the vote.

Elections in occupied territories — an impossible legitimacy

The illegal 2022 annexation and its consequences for electoral legitimacy

Extending the Duma elections to the occupied Ukrainian territories — the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts — raises fundamental legitimacy questions. These territories were illegally annexed by Russia in September 2022 through referendums that the international community — including the UN, the EU, the United States, and the overwhelming majority of the world's nations — refused to recognize. These annexations directly violate the United Nations Charter, the principle of territorial integrity, and international law.

Organizing legislative elections in these territories is an attempt to solidify annexation through formal electoral means — creating Duma representatives from these regions to normalize their belonging to the Russian Federation. But this maneuver cannot produce the international legitimacy it seeks. No government recognizing Ukrainian sovereignty over these territories — which is to say virtually the entire international community — will recognize these representatives. They are elected officials whose mandate rests on an illegal occupation and an unrecognized annexation.

The conditions for a free vote in a war zone

Beyond international legitimacy questions, the material conditions for a free vote in the occupied territories do not exist. These regions are under Russian military administration. The civilian Ukrainian population that has not fled — and millions have fled — lives under military occupation, with controlled movement, monitored communications, and a permanent physical presence of Russian armed forces. Freedom of political expression, freedom of association, freedom of the press — all the minimum conditions of a democratic vote — are absent.

Moreover, a significant portion of the territories officially annexed by Russia is not under its effective control. Ukrainian forces maintain their presence in parts of Kherson Oblast on the right bank of the Dnipro and in parts of Donetsk Oblast. Organizing elections in partially controlled territory, under military occupation, with a partly displaced population — this produces an electoral farce that has meaning only within Russian domestic rhetoric.

Internal pressures — shortages, frustrations, and war fatigue

The Russian economy in 2026 — worrying indicators

The economic context in which these elections will take place is marked by an accumulation of tensions that complicate the Kremlin's political agenda. Economic growth slowdown is documented by independent economists monitoring the Russian economy from Moscow, Helsinki, and Kyiv. Fuel shortages in more than twenty Russian regions — directly linked to Ukrainian strikes on refineries — are affecting the daily lives of ordinary citizens. Inflation on basic necessities remains high. Interest rates maintained at exceptionally high levels by the Russian Central Bank to contain inflation are weighing on credit access for businesses and households.

Repeated internet outages — deliberate information-control measures in a wartime context — generate practical frustration among Russians who depend on digital services for their professional and personal activities. Ukrainian long-range strikes deep inside Russia — hitting Moscow, Yaroslavl, Volgograd, Bashkortostan — create a security anxiety among populations that had not experienced war on their own territory since World War II. These economic and security tensions are accumulating in an electorate heading to the polls in fewer than three months.

The disillusionment of pro-war conservative circles

One of the least-discussed political vulnerabilities of Putin's regime is the progressive disillusionment within its own base. Russia's militarist and nationalist circles — those who had enthusiastically backed the 2022 invasion believing in a quick victory — are now confronting the reality of a long, costly war with no decisive victory in sight. Military casualties — more than 1.4 million Russian losses since February 24, 2022, according to the Ukrainian general staff — are hitting families across every region of Russia. Those losses generate private grievances that cannot be expressed publicly but manifest in electoral behavior.

Putin's decision to stay the military course without offering his population a clear way out of the crisis generates a quiet frustration that security services observe and report. It is not revolution — repression remains effective enough to suppress any organized movement. But it is a gradual erosion of social consensus that complicates electoral mobilization. The Kremlin needs an electoral result that displays its dominance unequivocally — and current conditions make that harder to produce than in previous votes.

Russia claiming normalcy — the election as performance

The election as an internal legitimation ritual

Elections in Russia under Putin have never been open political competitions. They have been legitimation rituals — stage productions of popular consent yielding predetermined results that allow the regime to claim a democratic mandate. In that framework, the September 2026 election is not different in nature from previous ones. Real opposition parties are banned or marginalized. Independent candidates are filtered by Kremlin-controlled electoral commissions. Independent media, almost all shut down or in exile, cannot mount critical coverage.

What is different this time is the context of fragility in which this electoral performance must take place. In 2021, during the last Duma elections, Russia was nominally at peace, the economy was functioning reasonably despite the 2014 sanctions, and the most visible opposition — represented by Alexei Navalny, then in prison but alive — had not yet been physically eliminated. In 2026, everything has changed: total war, massive sanctions, fuel shortages, drones over Moscow, and the regime's traditional electoral base under pressure.

The result control mechanisms — institutionalized fraud

Control of electoral results in Russia rests on a well-documented combination of institutional mechanisms. The Central Election Commission is directly under the Kremlin's thumb. Ballot stuffing and count manipulation have been documented in every Russian election by independent observers. Electronic voting, progressively introduced, offers even less transparency than paper ballots. Independent electoral monitoring NGOs have been closed or forced into exile. The civil society that could have watched the process has been systematically dismantled since 2022.

In this context, the main question is not whether the results will be manipulated — they will be, that is the norm — but rather how far the manipulation will be credible. A result of 70% for United Russia when polls show 35% support would create a credibility chasm visible even by normal Russian standards. The security services requesting election cancellation are anticipating precisely that problem: that even large-scale fraud may not produce a result convincing enough for both international and domestic backers of the regime.

The role of United Russia — the party that embodies the Russian state

United Russia as an elite management apparatus

United Russia is not a political party in the conventional sense. It is an elite management apparatus — a structure for organizing loyalty to Putin, distributing state resources to loyalists, and nominating candidates for elected positions at every level of government. It has no coherent ideology beyond loyalty to Putin and to the Russian state. It has no distinctive program beyond continuity. It is the ruling party by default, occupying the political space that the state allocates to parties within a pseudo-competitive system.

The decline in support for United Russia is therefore less an ideological signal — Russians are not voting for an alternative program — than a signal of general adherence to the regime. When support for United Russia falls, it is support for Putin and for the direction of the war that falls. And that is why this decline is perceived as an existential threat by security services, who see in the elections a risk of making public a fragility the regime would rather keep hidden.

The satellite parties — controlled opposition

The Russian electoral system maintains an illusion of multi-partyism with satellite parties that offer a false alternative without threatening the regime. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR, founded by the late Vladimir Zhirinovsky) has always played the role of nationalist overflow valve, allowing frustrated voters to "vote against" United Russia without actually voting for an alternative. The Communist Party of Russia serves the same function for Soviet nostalgics. These parties are never allowed near real power — their function is to channel discontent into harmless channels.

In 2026, the question is whether the satellite parties will capture more votes than expected — not because they represent a real alternative, but because voting for a satellite party is the only form of electoral protest available within this system. A Duma with a reduced majority for United Russia — even with satellite parties staying within acceptable limits — would be perceived as a sign of regime weakness by domestic and international observers.

Economic pressure as a political factor — the direct connection

Diesel shortages and Duma votes — the causal chain

The connection between fuel shortages and voting intentions for the Duma is a documentable causal chain. In the regions where fuel restrictions are most severe — the agricultural regions of Western Siberia, the Urals, and the Volga — the concrete economic effects on ordinary citizens are most visible. A farmer who cannot obtain the diesel needed for his planting or harvest is not a satisfied voter for the regime that promised him prosperity and security. A driver who waits for hours at a gas station in an oil city like Tyumen or Omsk is not going to vote enthusiastically for the ruling party.

These effects are the direct electoral translation of Ukraine's refinery strike campaign. Ukraine is not only seeking to reduce Russia's military capacity — it is seeking to create internal political pressure that complicates the position of Putin and United Russia. In that reading, refinery strikes are not merely military operations — they are political operations that affect the conditions in which elections will take place. This is a sophisticated indirect strategy that deserves to be recognized as such.

The long-term impact of sanctions on electoral behavior

Western economic sanctions — the EU's 17 packages, American, British, and Canadian sanctions — have a diffuse but real impact on the Russian economy. This impact is not always immediately perceptible to ordinary citizens — but it manifests progressively in the unavailability of certain goods, the decline in quality of imported products, difficulties accessing banking services and international trade. Over several years, these cumulative effects erode the standard of living and create an economic atmosphere difficult to ignore at the ballot box.

Independent economic analysts — notably those at the KSE Institute and Western institutions such as CREA — estimate that sanctions and Ukrainian strikes have considerably increased the costs of the war for Russia compared to initial projections. Those costs eventually ripple through Russia's social fabric. And in the electoral context of September 2026, they constitute a backdrop of discontent that the Kremlin cannot entirely control through propaganda alone.

The international dimension — illegitimate elections and international law

Predictable international condemnation and its limits

The Duma elections incorporating occupied Ukrainian territories will be condemned by the international community with predictable consistency. EU member states, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the vast majority of UN nations will refuse to recognize them as legitimate. Diplomatic statements condemning the elections in occupied territories will be issued. These condemnations will be legally and morally correct — but their practical effect on Russia's behavior will be limited.

Russia has shown since 2014 — with elections organized in annexed Crimea — that it can ignore international condemnations of elections in occupied territories without immediate consequences. What changes in 2026 is that the combined military and economic pressure — sanctions, refinery strikes, massive military losses — creates a context in which these elections cannot play their usual legitimation role. International condemnation weighs more heavily as the regime is already weakened domestically.

Ukraine and its allies facing Russian elections — strategy and communication

For Ukraine and its allies, the September 2026 Duma elections represent a strategic communication opportunity. Documenting and denouncing elections in occupied territories reinforces the Ukrainian narrative on the illegitimate nature of Russian occupation. Highlighting internal Kremlin pressure to cancel the elections — a sign of fragility — helps erode the perception of an invincible Russia. Underscoring the repressive context in which the vote takes place — shortages, censorship, surveillance — shows that the regime does not enjoy genuine popular support.

Zelensky's 40-day campaign approved on June 25, 2026 is in this context particularly well timed. By maintaining or intensifying strikes on Russian infrastructure in the weeks leading up to the September elections, Ukraine adds direct economic and security pressure on the conditions in which the vote will take place. Fuel shortages, burning refineries, drones over Russian cities — all of this makes it harder for the Kremlin to project the image of normalcy that elections are supposed to convey.

FSB signals — a reading of domestic intelligence

What the cancellation request really means

The FSB's request to cancel the Duma elections is an exceptional signal about the state of Russian domestic security. The FSB is not an institution that lightly requests election cancellations — it is the institution whose primary mission is to guarantee regime stability. If the FSB believes holding elections poses a risk to stability, that means its internal analyses show a level of discontent high enough that the electoral result could be problematic — even with large-scale fraud.

This cancellation request also reveals a deep debate within Russian security circles about the political durability of the regime under current conditions. It suggests that some senior security officials believe that the foundations of popular support for Putin — the promise of stability, security, and relative prosperity — have eroded enough that the usual electoral mechanisms no longer function predictably. That is an admission of institutional anxiety that deserves to be taken seriously.

Putin's resistance to cancellation — the logic of legitimacy necessity

Putin's resistance to his own security services' cancellation request reveals his conviction that elections — even risky ones — are necessary to maintain the appearance of legitimacy that allows Russia to function on the international stage and manage its relationships with certain partners such as China and India. Canceled elections would mean a public admission of an internal political crisis — which would be used by Russia's diplomatic adversaries to weaken its alliances and its international standing.

The decision to hold elections despite the risks is therefore a calculation of perception management: the risk of an unsatisfactory electoral result is judged less grave than the risk of an explicit cancellation that projects the image of a regime in crisis. It is a calculation that may prove right or wrong depending on how far fraud can be scaled and the credibility it produces. But it is fundamentally the calculation of a regime that cannot afford to admit its own vulnerability.

Putin at the United Russia congress — rhetorical analysis

The rhetoric of the external enemy to mobilize the domestic base

Putin's rhetoric at the United Russia congress — the West trying to destabilize Russia politically after failing militarily — is a classic deployment of external threat theory to consolidate domestic support. This rhetoric worked effectively in 2014 and in 2022 — each escalation had produced an initial rally-around-the-flag effect. But its effectiveness erodes with time as reality accumulates to contradict the official narrative.

In 2026, Russians queuing at gas stations are not persuaded that their difficulties are caused by Western destabilization — they know their refineries were struck by Ukrainian drones, information that even state media eventually communicates partially. Families who have lost loved ones in the war did not lose them to Western manipulation — they lost them in a war chosen by their government. The external-enemy rhetoric is decreasingly effective when the effects of war are felt on Russian territory itself.

The absence of a post-war vision — a gaping political void

One striking element of Putin's rhetoric at the United Russia congress is the complete absence of any articulated plan for ending the war. He offered United Russia candidates no vision of a post-conflict future that could mobilize a weary electorate. He announced no clear conditions for ending hostilities. He provided no timeline. He simply reaffirmed the war mission and blamed difficulties on the Western enemy — a formula that works as mobilization at the start of a conflict but exhausts itself as the war drags on without any prospect of resolution.

That vision vacuum is politically dangerous. Populations tolerate extraordinary sacrifices when they see a way out. But a war without a clearly defined horizon — a war whose objectives have shifted and expanded since 2022 without ever being achieved — creates a deep political fatigue. United Russia finds itself having to defend this endless war in an election campaign — an extremely uncomfortable political position.

Post-election scenarios — what could happen in September 2026

Scenario 1 — Large-scale fraud and a managed victory

The most probable scenario is the one the Kremlin is preparing: large-scale electoral fraud producing an "acceptable" result of 50–55% for United Russia — enough to maintain an absolute majority in the Duma, plausible enough not to trigger too flagrant an international credibility crisis. This scenario would allow the regime to claim a renewed democratic mandate while continuing the war. Its execution requires even more intensive electoral manipulation than in previous votes — which carries its own risks of revelations and scandals.

This scenario is most probable because the Kremlin controls all the institutional levers — electoral commission, courts, security forces, media — that allow it to organize and validate large-scale fraud. There is no opposition capable of challenging the result in an organized way. Independent observers have been expelled or jailed. Popular resistance to a manipulated result would be immediately suppressed. This scenario maintains the authoritarian status quo — with the difference that its legitimacy will be even more hollow than before.

Scenario 2 — Conditions too degraded to produce a credible result

A less probable but non-negligible scenario would be one where internal pressure is so intense that even large-scale fraud produces a result that no one — including Russia's partners and allies — can publicly defend. A United Russia result below 40% despite manipulation, or reports from regional channels of particularly blatant fraud, or unusual protests in mid-sized Russian cities — any of that would constitute a domestic political crisis that the regime would struggle to manage without aggravation.

This scenario is unlikely in the short term because the regime has the instruments needed to prevent its public manifestation. But it is possible if economic pressure — notably the fuel shortages linked to Ukrainian strikes — continues worsening in the months leading to the vote. Zelensky's 40-day campaign, running through the summer of 2026, could directly contribute to creating the conditions for this scenario.

What the elections say about Russia in 2026

A regime that needs legitimacy but cannot produce it authentically

The September 2026 electoral exercise reveals a fundamental contradiction in Putin's regime. It needs the forms of democracy — elections, parties, votes — to present itself as a normal state to its international partners, notably China, India, Turkey, and other countries that maintain commercial relations with Russia. But it cannot accept the content of democracy — genuine competition, uncertain results, the possibility of a change in power — without endangering its political survival.

That contradiction — the necessity of forms without substance — is ultimately unsolvable. The more massively the regime commits fraud, the more its elections lose their legitimacy signal value for sophisticated observers. And as the war imposes growing costs on Russian society — human losses, economic shortages, security anxiety — pressure on this fragile system increases. The September 2026 elections will be a barometer — imperfect, manipulated, but real — of the state of that pressure.

Implications for Ukrainian and Western strategy

The domestic political fragility revealed by tensions around the Duma elections reinforces the relevance of Ukraine's economic pressure strategy. Every refinery strike, every region put under fuel restrictions, every cost-of-living increase due to sanctions — all of it contributes to the erosion of domestic regime support that will manifest in September's electoral behaviors. For Ukraine's Western partners, supporting this pressure campaign in the months leading up to the elections is a rare strategy that aligns military, economic, and political instruments toward a single objective.

Russia can rig its elections. It can maintain its regime through fraud and repression for more years. But each cycle of manipulated elections in a crisis context erodes Putin's legitimacy further — with his own population, his partners, and his own elites. The facade of democracy requires constant maintenance — and the resources needed for that maintenance are being consumed by an endless war. That is a logic of exhaustion that Ukraine's strategy and its allies have every interest in sustaining consistently.

Conclusion: the election as a test of regime resilience

The September 2026 elections as a mirror of the war

The State Duma elections of September 2026 will be one of the most revealing tests of Putin's regime's domestic political resilience since the full-scale war began. They will take place under conditions of growing economic scarcity, massive military losses, unprecedented domestic security pressure in decades, and in occupied Ukrainian territories where the vote will be an electoral farce unrecognized by the international community. Results will be manipulated — but even large-scale manipulation can produce signals about the true state of Russian society.

What comes next requires action

For Ukraine and its allies, the months separating this analysis from the September elections are a strategic window. Maintaining and intensifying economic pressure — refinery strikes, energy sanctions, targeting of the shadow fleet — in the weeks leading up to the vote is a strategy that complicates Putin's domestic political life while pursuing military objectives. It is a coherence of means in service of a single goal: push Russia toward serious negotiation from a position of growing weakness. The legitimacy Putin cannot buy at the ballot box, Ukraine can help strip from him in the refineries.

Final conclusion: Putin facing the electoral test of his own war

The paradox of the election that exposes the fragility

The supreme irony of the September 2026 Duma elections is that Putin created the problem himself. By invading Ukraine and promising a quick victory, he created the economic and military conditions that make these elections dangerous for his regime. By annexing Ukrainian territories and planning to include them in the vote, he created an unsolvable international legitimacy problem. By maintaining the elections despite his security services' warnings, he chooses the performance of legitimacy over prudent risk management. That choice is revealing of a regime trapped by its own decisions.

What this analysis says about the future

Putin's Russia will survive the September 2026 elections — the regime has enough control instruments to ensure its short-term continuity. But each cycle of manipulated elections in a deepening crisis further erodes the foundations of legitimacy. And that erosion — slow, difficult to measure from the outside, but real and documentable — is one of the most important long-term effects of the war Putin chose. It is a war that can only end in two ways: with a total Russian victory that is increasingly unlikely, or with serious negotiation that the combined pressure — military, economic, political — will eventually make inevitable.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My editorial position

This analysis is written from an explicitly pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin position. I consider Russian elections in occupied Ukrainian territories to be illegitimate and illegal under international law. This position is legally grounded and corresponds to the official position of the international community. My analysis of Russian internal political dynamics is based on available sources, notably the Kyiv Independent and independent Russian media in exile — some of whose information comes from anonymous sources close to power and cannot be independently verified. I note this limitation to allow the reader to assess the appropriate level of certainty.

Sources and limits of the analysis

Information on Putin's statements at the United Russia congress comes from the Kyiv Independent of June 28, 2026. Information on FSB pressure to cancel the elections comes from sources citing sources close to the presidential administration — information that is by definition difficult to verify independently. Support figures for United Russia come from polls cited by Meduza, an independent Russian outlet in exile. Economic data (fuel shortages, regional restrictions) is better documented and comes from multiple converging sources.

Sources

Primary sources

Kyiv Independent — As State Duma elections near, Putin claims West seeks to politically destabilize Russia — June 28, 2026

Ukrainska Pravda — Fuel shortages spread across Russia and occupied parts — June 17, 2026

Kyiv Independent — Ukraine war latest: Ukraine struck oil refineries — June 28, 2026

Secondary sources

UNN — Security officials suggested to Putin to cancel the State Duma elections — June 2026

Euromaidanpress — Zelenskyy says Russia refused G7 peace talks offer — June 17, 2026

Kyiv Independent — Central Russia's major oil refineries halt production — May 21, 2026