State Duma deputy Sergei Neverov has dropped out of the United Russia primary in the Smolensk single-member district. A second candidate then followed — Artem Kornyuchenkov, a deputy on the Smolensk City Council and a veteran of the war in Ukraine.

Neverov wrote on social media:

The district has been conceded. Our candidate, a participant in the special military operation Artem Kornyuchenkov, has withdrawn his candidacy from the preliminary vote. Yes, politics is not a battlefield: here, everything is more sophisticated. The opinion of Smolensk residents interests no one, and the results of the United Russia preliminary vote in the Smolensk region no longer matter to anyone.

United Russia’s primary — a preliminary vote to select candidates for the State Duma elections scheduled for fall 2026 — had drawn Neverov as a contender until May 14, when he withdrew and asked that support shift to Kornyuchenkov, 28. He also called on party leadership to nominate Kornyuchenkov for the elections, warning that failing to do so “would be unjust.” “Or someone will decide to play political games. That would be dishonest. That would be dishonorable toward the residents of the heroic Smolensk land,” Neverov added.

On May 19, Kornyuchenkov announced on his VK page that he was withdrawing as well. He said that “at the present time there is an important task of forming a veterans’ community, of forming an association of war veterans in the Smolensk region,” and that this is “difficult work.”

According to sources at RBC, Vedomosti, and BBC Russia, the district also has another contender: Alexander Babakov, first deputy chairman of A Just Russia and deputy speaker of the State Duma. The BBC identified Babakov as one of the party’s sponsors and calls him one of the wealthiest and most influential deputies in A Just Russia.

Sergei Neverov has served in the State Duma since 1999. He was the deputy speaker from 2021 to 2024, the leader of the United Russia parliamentary faction from 2017 to 2021, and the secretary of the party’s general council from 2011 to 2017. In the 2016 and 2021 election cycles, Neverov won his seat from the Smolensk single-member district.

In 2013, Alexei Navalny published an investigation into a gated country-house community outside Moscow, home to senior state officials, including Neverov. He later won a defamation lawsuit against Navalny.