Short answers, pulled from the story.
Citizens must be at least 35 years old and have resided in Russia for 25 years to run for president. The Russian Constitution adopted in 1993 establishes these legal foundations for all federal elections.
The State Duma holds 450 seats and is elected every five years under a mixed system combining proportional representation and single-seat districts. Each of Russia's 89 federal subjects sends two delegates to the Federation Council creating a total of 208 members who are not directly elected by the public.
Vladimir Putin later mandated a return to the mixed system in 2013 restoring Law number 175 after a decade of pure list voting. This shift altered how political power was distributed across the country over three decades following the abolition of the mixed system entirely in 2003.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe withdrew its monitoring mission from the December 2007 legislative election after Russian authorities imposed severe restrictions on their work. Christian Strohal director of the European Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights stated in February 2008 that limitations created by Moscow made observation impossible.
As of 2023 only six major cities retained direct mayoral voting while nine out of 83 regional capitals did so. Direct mayoral elections declined sharply between 2006 and 2018 dropping from 65% of cities holding them to just 12% due to centralization reducing local autonomy over electoral processes.