On June 20, the CPRF held its election congress to nominate candidates for the State Duma. The party approved over 300 candidates from 36 regions. "Novaya Gazeta Europe" examined who exactly will be nominated in this year's elections. Who made the list. The CPRF's list is very unevenly composed. The largest number of candidates - 30 people - were nominated in the Moscow region. In second place are the annexed Crimea and occupied territories - 17 candidates. In third place are the regions of the Northwestern Federal District (Petersburg, Leningrad region, Karelia, Murmansk region), with 16 people running from them. 15 candidates will be elected from Moscow. The smallest number of people are represented in Ingushetia (two people), Adygea (three), the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (four), and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (four). According to "Vedomosti", the average age of the nominees is 50 years. The federal part of the list consists of 15 people, of whom only the head of Khakassia, Valentin Konovalov, is not a State Duma deputy. The rest are "experienced party functionaries" who were also on the list in 2021. "SVO" Participants Out of 336 people on the list, there are 21 participants in the war in Ukraine. One of the most famous "front-line" candidates is Anton Shilov from Ulyanovsk. He served in the Airborne Forces and signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense in 2022. The man participated in the Gostomel operation, when in the early days of the invasion, the Russian army tried to capture the Antonov airfield in the Kyiv region. Shilov served as a scout-radio operator in the 104th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, which participated in battles in the Kursk region during the invasion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2024, Shilov was wounded. After recovery in the hospital, he headed the Association of "SVO" Veterans and then became deputy director of one of the Ulyanovsk hospitals. He was invited to "Lessons of Courage" in schools, where he talks about the war. The CPRF will also nominate the former prosecutor of the Prosecutor General's Office of the "LNR", Vitaly Narizhny. He graduated from the Faculty of Radiophysics of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. After that, Narizhny headed the information department of the tax inspectorate of the Ukrainian city of Kaharlyk. In 2012, he became the head of the company "Agro Expert Group", which supplies seeds, agrochemicals, and agricultural machinery. The company itself has been actively doing business in the "LNR" and cooperating with local authorities since 2022-2023. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation included "Agro Expert Group" in the list of systemically important enterprises for ensuring food security. As follows from the CPRF press releases, Narizhny himself fought in Ukraine. What exactly he did there is unknown. Also on the CPRF list is Sergey Zakharchenko, advisor to the head of the "DNR" and son of the first head of the "DNR". His father, Alexander Zakharchenko, died in 2018 as a result of an explosion in the "Separr" cafe in the center of Donetsk. Sergey himself joined the CPRF in 2023 and lived in Moscow. In 2025, he signed a contract. Zakharchenko Jr. served as a senior rifleman in the 7th Volunteer Reconnaissance and Assault Brigade "St. George the Victorious", and then in the International Brigade "Piatnashka". The "St. George" Brigade has been fighting in the Bakhmut direction since 2023; it is part of the PMC "Redut", which, according to "Schemes" and "System", is supervised by the GRU. "Piatnashka" is also part of "Redut". Members of the brigade participated in battles in the Kursk region and Avdiivka. Occupied and self-proclaimed territories Among the politicians and representatives of the "new" territories, one of the most prominent candidates can be called Boris Litvinov. He is considered one of the politicians who stood at the origins of the "DNR". Litvinov is the author of the Act and Declaration of Independence of the "DNR"; in 2014, he headed the Supreme Council of the republic and created the Communist Party of the DNR. Later, his relations with the "DNR" authorities complicated: in 2016, Litvinov was stripped of his deputy mandate "due to loss of trust". After the start of the war in Ukraine, he joined the CPRF and headed the Donetsk branch of the party. In 2023, he again became a deputy of the People's Council of the "DNR". Litvinov characterizes himself as a communist of Lenin's NEP period and an admirer of the Chinese experience. The EU imposed sanctions against him. In addition, other representatives of the occupied territories are on the list. For example, the first secretary of the Zaporozhye regional committee of the CPRF, Oleg Slyusarenko, and the first secretary of the Kherson regional committee of the CPRF, Ramil Zamaletdinov. Scandalous politicians The CPRF list includes the current governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, who has already participated in the elections to the State Duma - in 2021 he received a mandate, but refused it in favor of the post of governor. In recent years, he has been at the center of political scandals. Klychkov's close associate and advisor, Sergey Lezhnev, was detained in 2024 in a case of embezzlement of about 200 million rubles of budget funds. Recently, charges of organizing a criminal community were added to his case, and Lezhnev is currently in a pre-trial detention center. Also in 2024, a scandal broke out in the Oryol region around the waste sorting plant "Ecopolis", which the head of the region called advanced during its opening. Immediately after launch, local deputies, activists, and media recorded critical violations. Huge piles formed on the plant's territory, and waste began to be openly dumped near the Neprets protected ravine. As a result, the Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case. The EU imposed sanctions against Klychkov for participating in the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The politician personally visited camps in Russia where children were sent and "gave instructions" to issue them Russian citizenship. The CPRF list also includes Nikolay Bondarenko, author of the opposition blog "Diary of a Deputy". He has repeatedly criticized "United Russia" and opposed the pension reform. He also participated in protests in support of Alexei Navalny. As media reported, citing his leaked correspondence, Bondarenko offered Leonid Volkov 1 million rubles for inclusion in the "Smart Voting" list. The parties did not comment on this. In February 2022, he was stripped of his mandate as a deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma because the prosecutor's office found violations in his income declaration. In addition, State Duma deputy Denis Parfenov is on the list. In 2024, a video appeared on social networks showing a man, who strongly resembled the deputy, spending time with a prostitute. They were in a room that looked like an office in the State Duma. Parfenov himself called the video a "fabrication" and refused to comment on the topic. Deputies demanded that he be stripped of his mandate. The CPRF stated that it could have been a provocation. Despite this, former State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin is not on the list. He lost his mandate in 2022 after a dead elk was found in the trunk of his car. In 2024, his criminal record was expunged, so he regained the ability to run. On June 6, RBC, citing sources, reported that the CPRF would nominate Rashkin in the Angarsk single-mandate constituency in the Irkutsk region. A few days later, "Vedomosti" clarified that the politician was ultimately not included in the list - Rashkin's candidacy "could not be agreed upon".