Russian authorities announced on Sunday that they had detected over a thousand cyberattacks targeting the legislative elections, coinciding with the third and final day of voting, amidst Russian accusations of attempts to disrupt the electoral process.
The French news agency AFP reported a Russian official stating that more than 1,000 cyberattacks targeted the elections, while the Central Election Commission had earlier announced that systems related to voting had been subjected to cyberattacks during the polling process.
Central Election Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova said on Saturday that the electronic voting system in Moscow had been subjected to "very strong" cyberattacks throughout the night, confirming that the attacks continued almost continuously. She did not specify the responsible party at that time.
Despite the attacks, Russian authorities stated that the electronic voting system continued to operate normally and that the polling process did not stop.
Pamfilova also mentioned actions targeting communication lines in the far east of Russia, describing them as a "deliberate sabotage" aimed at obstructing voting.
The Chair of the Election Commission had warned before polling began of a significant increase in attacks targeting the electoral system and its infrastructure, stating that the rate and intensity were difficult to compare with what Russia experienced in previous years, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The Russian legislative elections are being held over three days, from September 18 to 20, to elect members of the State Duma, which has 450 deputies.
The cyberattacks coincided with a wide-ranging Ukrainian drone attack on Russian territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced the interception of more than 1,100 drones overnight, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones were headed towards the capital.
Sobyanin accused Ukraine of attempting to influence the elections through the drone attack, stating that the attempt did not disrupt voting. Kyiv did not declare that the elections were the target of the attack.
Regarding the cyberattacks, the initial information about the tally exceeding a thousand attacks did not include independent evidence identifying the party that executed them, while Moscow had accused Kyiv of trying to disrupt the elections before voting began, an accusation that Ukraine did not comment on at that time.