Last Sunday, 25 January, an early election for the head of the village of Apuka took place in Kamchatka Krai.
The previous village head, Elena Krygina, was removed from office due to loss of trust; this occurred on 7 August last year.
The district court established that Krygina had concluded contracts with one of the village residents for the demolition of buildings. One of them had already been dismantled earlier, before the contract was signed, and the other had burned down in a fire in 2017. Krygina signed acceptance certificates for the completed work and paid for it. The contractor was a man who is the father of two children of the settlement head’s own sister.
The vote here was supposed to take place on 7 December. However, the registration of United Russia candidate Nadezhda Poddubnaya was denied at that time, and then the already registered self-nominated candidate, local council deputy Sergei Oreshnikov, withdrew. The decisions on the denial and on the annulment of the candidates’ registration were not published by the precinct election commission organising the election.
This time, three candidates were registered, including United Russia nominee Vyacheslav Malyshev, deputy head of the local administration, as well as self-nominated candidates — Natalya Nutene, head of the district children’s library, and Sergei Rultevneut, a boiler-house operator.
According to the election results, candidates Vyacheslav Malyshev and Natalya Nutene each received 39 votes.
In the event of a tie, the candidate who notified the election commission of their nomination earlier is recognised as the elected head of the municipal formation. According to information from the Election Commission of Kamchatka Krai, that candidate was self-nominated candidate Natalya Nutene.
And also elections that did not happen
Meanwhile, in Olyokminsk in Yakutia, a mayoral election and additional elections of city council deputies were called and immediately cancelled.
The local representative body consists of 21 deputies. In 2024–2025, deputies here gradually submitted personal statements and resigned. Because of this, elections were called to fill five vacated seats across five three-mandate electoral districts.
However, the republic’s election commission drew the council’s attention to the fact that 15 out of 21 deputies — more than two-thirds — retain their mandates, which allows it to hold quorate sessions and adopt legitimate decisions. Thus, there were no grounds for calling the elections — and the city council cancelled its decision.
The mayoral election was called after Sergei Shcheblyakov resigned early. He explained his voluntary resignation as a desire to give the townspeople the opportunity to elect their head for another five years before the adoption of a regional law abolishing direct elections.
However, the election was cancelled by the district court — the court considered that there was no quorum of the city council when the decision to call it was made.
At the same time, the chair of the representative body, Vintsetiana Orlova, had previously informed a number of media outlets that a quorum had in fact been present. Orlova filed an appeal against the decision of the Olyokminsk District Court with the Supreme Court of Yakutia.
In response, on 15 December, a group of United Russia deputies voted to strip Orlova of the chair’s position and appointed deputy chair Valentina Smirnova in her place. Subsequently, Orlova was stripped of her mandate altogether — on the recommendation of the prosecutor’s office due to loss of trust. The grounds were her vote in support of awarding a bonus to ex-mayor Sergei Shcheblyakov, who in 2024 became her relative by marrying her daughter.
The final point in the matter of calling the Olyokminsk mayoral election was put by the deputies of the State Assembly of Yakutia Il Tumen, who on 23 December 2025 adopted the law on local self-government in its second and final reading. Direct elections of heads of districts, cities and naslegs were abolished, and a transition to a system of competitive selection of candidates was enshrined instead.
25 January in Russia
Three candidates contested the post of head of one municipality.
Total since the start of the new electoral cycle
After the single voting day on 14 September 2025, 13 electoral campaigns for municipal heads have taken place. 36 candidates took part in them.
Elections of deputies to 64 local representative bodies have taken place; 275 deputy seats were filled. 571 candidates were registered in majoritarian districts.
