President Vladimir Putin had cast the three-day election to the State Duma - the first since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022 - as a test of support for the war. Elections for some regional parliaments and governors were held at the same time.
In a tightly controlled political system, which does not tolerate genuine dissent, under which many of Yabloko's candidates were barred, few surprises were expected.
Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov has positioned the party as the only force campaigning for a ceasefire in Russia's war against Ukraine. All other parties support the invasion.
The liberal opposition party secured 6.38 per cent of the vote in the Nizhny Novgorod region on the Volga, gaining a seat in the regional Duma for the first time.
The result caused a stir across Russia because the party was barred from standing across almost the entire country after a ruling by the Supreme Court.
"Peace, freedom and a life without fear - these are values that have resonated in people's hearts and souls," said Yabloko's regional organisation in Nizhny Novgorod.
But political analysts said it was important to the authorities that the process itself was seen to be relatively smooth. Officials from Putin down had cast the vote as a way of showing enemies that Russia was united.
With over 95 per cent of the vote counted, Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Electoral Commission, said United Russia had scored 57.83 per cent, up from the 49.8 per cent that it won in the last parliamentary election, in 2021.
United Russia was set to control 355 seats or nearly 80 per cent of the 450-seat Duma, a total that includes results in individual constituencies. That would maintain its constitutional majority - enabling it to pass laws and initiate amendments to the constitution without the support of other parties. It would also be an all-time high, outstripping its 2016 record of 343 seats.
Four other parties had made it into parliament - the Communists with 13.81 per cent, the ultra-nationalist LDPR with 8.98 per cent and the New People party with 7.96 per cent. The Just Russia party narrowly made the five per cent threshold needed to enter parliament.
All of those parties have voted in the same way as United Russia on major issues in recent years.
In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, was re-elected to a fifth term as leader with an official tally of near 100 per cent.
with dpa
