The Election Atlas project has launched a weekly social media monitoring programme covering the State Duma election campaign. We will examine the online activity of the parties and other participants in the electoral process.
Social media monitoring reports are published weekly.
During the sixth week of the campaign, the party lists submitted by United Russia (21 July), LDPR (22 July) and A Just Russia (23 July) were registered. Yabloko (21 July), Rodina (21 July), the Party of Direct Democracy (22 July) and the Greens (22 July) submitted their registration documents.
A total of 221,824 posts published between 21 and 27 July were analysed. The week’s main news drivers included the publication by the Central Election Commission of information on State Duma candidates’ income and assets, the registration of United Russia’s federal party list, and the intensification of administrative and legal pressure on Yabloko in St Petersburg.
Key findings
Following a decline in the fourth week of the campaign and a recovery in the fifth, posting activity continued to grow, reaching almost 222,000 posts in week six, an increase of 9.4% on the previous week. Views and engagement rose even more sharply, by 30.3% and 17.9% respectively. In other words, the average post attracted more attention and generated a stronger audience response than it had a week earlier.
Yabloko recorded the largest increase across all indicators. Its number of mentions, views and engagement figures all approximately doubled. Moreover, discussion of the party expanded beyond its traditional Telegram bubble and gained substantial traction on VKontakte. Yabloko’s overall performance placed it between the smaller parties and the five parliamentary parties, marking a notable advance. In terms of mentions and views, it came close to New People. This growth was driven by pressure on the party and its exclusion from elections in St Petersburg and Karelia, developments that attracted considerable attention and discussion among social media users.
For the first time during the monitoring period, we identified a coordinated, albeit low-impact, campaign distributing negative material against one of the parties, LDPR. A post concerning an alleged “scandal” involving a regional legislator was reproduced 2,516 times through a network of anonymous Telegram channels with minimal real audiences. Each copy received, on average, approximately one view and no reactions. This represents a fundamentally different model from the previously documented use of administrative resources by United Russia and A Just Russia, which rely on official or loyal accounts with genuine audiences to distribute neutral or favourable content.
Number of mentions
During the sixth week of the campaign, from 21 to 27 July, 221,824 mentions of political parties were recorded, 9.4% more than the previous week’s 202,719.
The increase was driven primarily by smaller and opposition parties. The number of posts mentioning Yabloko rose by 130.1%, from 2,056 to 4,730. Communists of Russia increased its total by 105.1%, from 1,286 to 2,637; the Greens by 95.3%, from 1,213 to 2,370; Rodina by 40.6%, from 1,292 to 1,817; the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, or CPRF, by 36.5%, from 12,505 to 17,075; and LDPR by 19.8%, from 18,563 to 22,231. A Just Russia recorded an increase of 8.5%, from 77,996 to 84,630.
The Party of Direct Democracy was the only party for which the number of posts declined, falling by 42.6%, from 94 to 54. The number of posts concerning United Russia remained virtually unchanged, decreasing by 0.06%, from 78,842 to 78,794.
The rise in coverage of smaller and opposition parties was associated with a range of high-profile developments. The CPRF continued to incorporate the fuel crisis into its campaign messaging, as illustrated, for example, by a post published by the Leninist Communist Youth Union of the Russian Federation.
The increase in posts concerning Yabloko and Rodina was linked to administrative and legal pressure. The St Petersburg election commission refused to register Yabloko’s citywide list, while two more party activists were charged with displaying extremist symbols. Meanwhile, Rodina’s branch in the Republic of Karelia filed a lawsuit with the regional Supreme Court seeking to overturn Yabloko’s registration for the election to the republic’s Legislative Assembly.
United Russia and A Just Russia jointly accounted for 73.7% of all posts published during the week, or 163,424 out of 221,824. The online presence of both parties continues to be sustained by duplicate posts distributed through networks of party-affiliated or official accounts.
For example, a United Russia story announcing the launch of the regional stage of the “Person of Labour” award in Vladimir Region was reproduced 2,289 times by the social media pages of local administrations and publicly funded institutions. A statement by A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov concerning military training and firing a Kalashnikov rifle was duplicated 1,102 times through a network of regional pages using the name “A Just Russia – [City] News”.
A consolidated Central Election Commission post announcing the certification of party candidate lists and naming the relevant parties was distributed in a particularly unusual manner: it appeared 264 times on the pages of administrative and cultural institutions in the Chechen Republic.
Another development of note was a previously unrecorded type of content distribution: a campaign reproducing negative material about LDPR. A post entitled “Scandal Erupts in the Bryansk LDPR Camp”, concerning a deputy speaker of the regional parliament who had left his position as commander of a territorial defence unit, was published 2,516 times through a network of small anonymous Telegram channels.
The overwhelming majority of these copies received only isolated views and no engagement. This suggests that the network was used primarily to inflate the formal number of publications rather than to achieve meaningful audience reach.
Views
The total number of views received by posts concerning political parties rose to 239.72 million, an increase of 30.3% from 183.96 million the previous week. Growth in views therefore considerably outpaced the increase in the number of posts.
The largest increases were recorded for Yabloko, up 90.7% to 11.62 million views; the Party of Pensioners, up 62.9% to 1.53 million; A Just Russia, up 47.2% to 36.27 million; United Russia, up 30.2% to 90.69 million; and LDPR, up 27.8% to 47.89 million.
Declines were recorded for the Greens, down 29.6%; the Party of Direct Democracy, down 35.9%; and Communists of Russia, down 7.5%.
A significant share of the increase in views associated with A Just Russia was generated by a single viral publication that had no direct connection to the election campaign. An article published by LIFE.ru about the personal life of former Dom-2 participant Alyona Vodonayeva received 4.68 million views, accounting for approximately 13% of all views attributed to A Just Russia during the week.
The party was mentioned only indirectly. The article noted that Vodonayeva had attended a public discussion involving the party and its leader, Sergei Mironov, and that her younger brother, Stanislav Vodonayev, was an incumbent A Just Russia deputy in Moscow’s Odintsovo district. Most of the article concerned the blogger’s private life and her family’s business interests and was not directly related to the party’s election campaign.
LDPR’s widest-reaching posts concerned legislative proposals in the area of family support. These included a proposal to extend subsidised family mortgages to previously owned housing, which received 1.28 million views; an initiative to freeze the vehicle recycling fee until 2030, with 1.1 million views; and the argument that support for families should not depend on the discretion of individual officials, with 1.04 million views.
A statement by LDPR Moscow City Duma deputy Maria Voropayeva demanding the immediate termination of social support measures for migrants also received substantial attention, reaching 854,600 views. The publication prompted a mixed response and was reproduced by a number of channels. Party leader Leonid Slutsky nevertheless supported Voropayeva, arguing that unless LDPR continued to escalate the issue in the public sphere, the country would face an overwhelming influx of migrants.
A recurring theme affecting several parties was the Central Election Commission’s publication of information on candidates’ incomes and assets, followed by a series of journalistic analyses.
A Readovka article examining the disparity in candidates’ declared incomes, ranging from 6 billion roubles for a United Russia representative to only a few roubles for certain New People candidates, received approximately 370,000 views.
An investigation by Mash Money into the number of land plots owned by State Duma candidates, published under the description “the feudal lords of the election campaign”, received more than 400,000 views across posts associated with different parties. An A Just Russia candidate topped the resulting ranking, which also included candidates from LDPR and New People.
In addition to the widely circulated announcement of the registration of United Russia’s federal list, which included Hero of Russia Lyudmila Boila, Secretary-General Vladimir Yakushev and war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, several regional social-interest stories published by official party pages also attracted substantial audiences.
One such story concerned assistance provided to a large family in Omsk that enabled it to retain its home, receiving more than one million views. The story subsequently took a reputationally ambiguous turn within the region when Omsk officials reportedly attempted to evict the same family.
Engagement
Total engagement, including reposts, reactions and comments, rose to 3.47 million, an increase of 17.9% from 2.94 million the previous week. Engagement therefore grew more moderately than views.
The largest increases were recorded for Yabloko, up 114.8%; the Party of Pensioners, up 47.5%; Rodina, up 43.9%; A Just Russia, up 29.3%; New People, up 27.6%; and the CPRF, up 22.8%.
LDPR, by contrast, recorded virtually no growth in engagement despite increases in both the number of posts, up 19.8%, and views, up 27.8%. On a per-post basis, audiences responded to LDPR content considerably less actively than they had the previous week.
It should also be recalled that the compromising material reproduced across a large network of channels generated no engagement on most of the pages through which it was distributed.
Engagement also declined for several smaller parties: Communists of Russia recorded a fall of 56.1%, the Greens 19.3%, and the Party of Direct Democracy 19.7%.
The highest engagement of any publication during the week was recorded by a post from the Telegram channel Topor Live concerning Solo+, a project launched by New People under which the party congratulates single mothers when they are discharged from maternity hospitals. The post received 492,600 views and 46,700 reactions.
Another of the week’s most highly engaged posts was published by the Telegram channel Skurlatov Live. It received approximately 420,000 views and almost 69,000 reactions and was presented as reporting the findings of a survey conducted by an “Expert Council of Russian Academy of Sciences scholars” among 11,286 respondents.
The channel is not a recognised polling organisation comparable to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, the Public Opinion Foundation or the Levada Center. The post itself uses propagandistic rather than analytically neutral language. It also refers to ROD-3, the Russian Public Movement, which the purported survey claimed would receive 54% of the vote if included on the ballot.
Given the origin and nature of the source, the publication cannot be treated as reliable evidence of public opinion. Its high level of engagement nevertheless demonstrates audience interest in this type of provocative and high-impact content.
Distribution of posts across platforms
VKontakte retained its dominant position, although its share of all monitored posts continued to decline, falling from 75.4% in the fifth week to 71.6% in the sixth. In absolute terms, however, the number of posts on the platform increased by 3.9%, from 152,782 to 158,783.
Telegram was the principal driver of growth. Its share of all content increased from 17.0% to 20.2%, while the number of posts rose by 29.9%, from 34,500 to 44,802.
MAX also continued to expand its presence. Its share increased from 7.1% to 7.8%, while the number of posts rose by 19.0%, from 14,468 to 17,221.
YouTube remained stable at approximately 0.46% of the total, with 1,018 posts, an increase of 5.1%.
At the level of individual parties, the changes varied considerably.
For United Russia, VKontakte’s share fell from 69.6% to 63.2%, while Telegram’s share increased from 19.5% to 24.2% and MAX’s from 10.6% to 12.3%.
New People underwent a substantial shift towards Telegram. The platform’s share of posts concerning the party rose from 32.0% to 46.5%, while VKontakte’s share declined from 56.4% to 31.6%.
Yabloko followed the opposite pattern. VKontakte’s share increased from 32.5% to 56.1%, while Telegram’s declined from 55.4% to 35.3%. During the previous week, Telegram’s dominance had been driven by extensive discussion among bloggers of the administrative pressure placed on the party. By the sixth week, part of this discussion had spread to VKontakte.
A Just Russia continued to display an exceptionally high concentration of publications on VKontakte, which accounted for 94.4% of its monitored posts.
Methodology
Four platforms currently used by Russian audiences were selected for the social media monitoring programme: VKontakte, MAX, Telegram and YouTube.
We have not yet been able to establish effective monitoring of Odnoklassniki and Instagram, both of which could have a substantial effect on the overall results. Should it become possible to incorporate these platforms in the coming weeks, the relevant data will be added.
The analysis covers mentions of 11 parties entitled to nominate party lists and individual candidates without collecting voter signatures: United Russia, the CPRF, LDPR, A Just Russia, New People, Yabloko, Communists of Russia, the Party of Direct Democracy, Rodina, the Party of Pensioners and the Greens.
Should other parties nominate candidates in the elections, they will be added to the monitoring programme.
We analysed posts on each platform, focusing on the following indicators:
the number of social media mentions, or posts, broken down by political party;
the number of mentions broken down by platform;
engagement, including reposts, reactions and comment activity;
duplicate posts, which frequently indicate the centralised distribution of materials;
key topics;
the use of administrative resources.