Why the Russia Election Actually Matters to Ukraine and Europe

In what must be the world’s least surprising election result, parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin have made a clean sweep in elections to Russia’s parliament, the State Duma. There’s little purpose to parsing who won what share of the vote; the point is that opponents of Putin and his war were either jailed, dead, in exile or banned from running. As a democratic exercise, this signified nothing — but it was an important moment nonetheless.