Is the war entering a new phase? Polls have closed in Russia's first wartime parliamentary elections, with the ruling United Russia party on course to win the tightly controlled vote. The Kremlin wants the elections, the first parliamentary vote since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to showcase popular support for the war and legitimise its action. The drone strikes on Sunday killed at least three people in the Moscow region and two more in the Russian-held part of Ukraine's Kherson region, including an election official, according to the region's governor and the election commission. Russian authorities also reported attacks on the country's electronic voting systems and communication lines during the polls, but said the electoral process was mostly smooth.

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Is the war entering a new phase? Ukraine has launched a barrage of drones on Moscow and other regions as Russia opened polls for its first parliamentary elections since the start of the war. More than 350 Ukrainian drones targeted the Russian capital on Friday morning, Moscow's mayor reported. With the vote potentially offering the Kremlin a measure of the public mood over the invasion, Kyiv has maintained its bid to use air attacks to have Russians feel the impact of the conflict politically, socially and economically. Only political parties that back the war have been registered to run.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia's parliamentary election: Who's on the ballot, and why it matters Share Russia's parliamentary election: Who's on the ballot, and why it matters on social media Russians head to the polls from Friday to Sunday to elect members of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, in the first parliamentary election to be held since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The vote comes as Russians face a slowing economy as well as Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries and warehouses far from the front line. United Russia, the governing party that backs President Vladimir Putin, is expected to keep its dominant position. The authorities are presenting the election as a chance for voters to have their say.

Rosenberg: Russia's elections will have few surprises, but for the Kremlin they matter To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, Low expectations that Russia's election will bring peace closer, Steve Rosenberg reports The system of power in Russia is often referred to as managed democracy (where the Kremlin does the managing). That means huge powers for the president and few political surprises. This weekend's election is set to deliver another parliament dominated by the party of power, United Russia, and a house of MPs fiercely loyal to Vladimir Putin. Critics dismiss the vote as neither free nor fair.

Is the war entering a new phase? The overpriced gas Anatoly has been buying in recent weeks in Moscow will ruin his white Kia's engine. "It's low-quality," the taxi driver told Al Jazeera withholding his last name for security purposes. "The engine already sounds like a sick heart The government allows a'temporary decrease in quality,' but what am I to do when I need new spare parts" that are barely available because of Western sanctions, he asked rhetorically. They don't knock, they kick the door," said the 49-year-old with a three-day stubble and bloodshot eyes. Russia's top military brass has not commented on Ukraine's assaults. But even the Kremlin's most outspoken supporters have changed their once-triumphant tune. "We have to get ready for hardships and self-sacrifice," Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host on the Rossiya 1 television network, said in mid-June. Solovyov has a penchant for aggressive, loud monologues and military-style attire. He once urged the Kremlin to "erase" Ukrainian cities with nuclear strikes and said that Kyiv and its Western allies "serve the prince of darkness." Military bloggers are even more pessimistic because of their proximity to the frontline. One of them, Prizrak Novorossii (The Ghost of New Russia), wrote on Telegram in late June that the Kremlin should conduct a massive mobilisation campaign because Russians already "foresee big changes and possible cataclysms because of, to put it mildly, the unfavourable dynamics of hostilities." The reason is simple - outmanned Ukrainians use "an asymmetrical tactic of long-range drone strikes with technological solutions that Russia is only catching up on," he wrote. "So, the question isn't about whether or not to have mobilisation, but about how to conduct it," the blogger concluded, adding that recent events "inspire little optimism." 'I'm afraid my son will be drafted' "I'm afraid my son will be drafted, but we don't have money to send him abroad," Kseniya, a mother of two from the western city of Tula, told Al Jazeera. She withheld her last name and personal details for security purposes. "We've been told a thousand times that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin brought stability, and instead, we see total chaos.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia has renewed its strikes on Ukraine, killing three people including an eight-year-old girl, Ukrainian officials said. The Russian strikes on Friday come a day after Ukraine launched its biggest-ever drone attack on Moscow, killing a different eight-year-old girl and sparking an inferno at a major oil refinery, according to Russian officials. Between late Thursday and early Friday, Russia launched 90 drones at Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force. "An eight-year-old girl was killed. These are the consequences of this morning's enemy attack on Pavlohrad," Oleksandr Ganzha, the governor of Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, said.

On Russian state TV a news bulletin shows images of a five-storey building reduced to rubble. Teams of rescuers are sifting through debris. On a severely damaged façade there's a sign: What happened here early on Friday has sparked Russian accusations, Ukrainian denials, an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council and vows of retribution by the Kremlin. The town of Starobilsk is in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine: in the Luhansk region which Moscow claims to have annexed. Russian officials accuse Ukraine of a carrying out a drone attack on the college dormitory.

Brutal raid on woman's birthday party highlights rise of Russian vigilante group Katya was about to blow out the candles on her 30th birthday cake when masked men burst into the nightclub hired for her party, and began physically and verbally attacking her friends. They called us faggots and lesbians. I could hear violence from every corner, she told a BBC World Service investigation. Her mother was told to get down on all fours, she says. The swoop was instigated by a vigilante group, called Russkaya Obshina, that wants to accelerate President Vladimir Putin's agenda to stamp out what he describes as Western liberalism, and promote traditional family-oriented values.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Trump spurns Kremlin's Putin residence attack claim, Russia kills 2 in Kyiv United States President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence had been attacked by Ukraine as the war grinds on, saying he did not "believe that strike happened", after having initially accepted the Kremlin's version of events at face value. On Sunday night, Trump, on board Air Force One, told reporters that "nobody knew at that moment" whether a report about the alleged incident was accurate.