For the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citizens are casting ballots to fill the 450 seats of the State Duma — an exercise the Kremlin frames as civic participation but which unfolds in a landscape stripped of genuine choice. United Russia, the party that has never lost under Putin's rule, is poised to dominate once more, its ballot list led by Foreign Minister Lavrov and anchored to the war effort. The removal of the only registered antiwar party, Yabloko, by court order has narrowed dissent to a whisper, yet analysts watch the margins carefully — for in a