Sunday’s local elections in a spate of Russian regions, including the country’s two biggest cities, showed that there’s no way to beat a cardsharp while playing by the rules. Moscow’s summer of protest ended with the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, commanding a comfortable majority in the city council and some activists beginning prison terms. But the tension under the surface is still there, especially in Moscow. The undeniable message for the Kremlin was that people in the city that sealed the Soviet Union’s fate in 1991 are tired of its methods.
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A woman gets out of a polling booth prior to casting her vote at a polling station during the governor's election in Saint Petersburg on Sept. 8, 2019.
