Although United Russia easily won the elections, there was nervousness at the Kremlin. On election day Putin's favoured oligarch Oleg Deripaska of aluminium giant Rusal sent 11,000 participants to Moscow for a posh conference on family values and geopolitics. They were told that, if necessary, they would be summoned to a large scale political rally in support of the regime.

With Moscow's relentless drive for centralisation and control it seems logical that ethnic minority regions in Russia would be critical of the Kremlin. However, in elections they more often than not vote for Putin and government party United Russia. How to explain this? Keep this in mind for the upcoming parliamentary elections of september 2021.