President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has called veterans the “new elite,” but selecting them as candidates is a risk. Almost 1,600 veterans of the war in Ukraine are running in parliamentary, regional and local elections across Russia this weekend. Konstantin N. Rizhak, a candidate for the A Just Russia Party, fought in Ukraine from October 2022 until July 2023. Other candidates include a participant in Russia’s assault on Mariupol and a journalist wounded by a Ukrainian drone in 2024. The governing United Russia party amended its rules to make it easier for veterans to get on the slate, reflecting the wider militarization of Russian society.

Elena Pamfilova, head of the Central Elections Commission, said roughly 200 veterans are competing for spots in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament. About 50 of them are poised to win seats, according to Mikhail Komin, an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis. The Kremlin scaled back its initial plans to put around 100 veterans in the Duma, which has 450 seats.

Mikhail Komin noted that mixing real combatants with “nominal” combatants could prevent any autonomous veteran bloc in Parliament. However, a large, vocal group of veterans could pressure bureaucratic and business elites to demonstrate loyalty to the military by extending tangible support for the war. Konstantin N. Rizhak, who is not from the governing party, represents Kremlin-preferred veterans with high-level work experience who are not tying their candidacies solely to the war.