The State Duma on the future: what laws will parliament adopt in 2026
After the holidays, the deputies are preparing to get back to work with renewed vigor. The spring session of the State Duma starts on January 12, and the very next day the first plenary session will be held. United Russia named assistance to veterans of its military education and the expansion of the experiment aimed at popularizing secondary vocational education as priority topics. The Liberal Democratic Party promised to work on reducing credit rates, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation recalled the initiative to nationalize the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Just Russia announced support for pensioners, and New People for entrepreneurs. About which topics will be the subject of special debates and discussions in the new year within the walls of parliament, see the Izvestia article.
Support for ITS participants
In 2026, almost all Duma factions will be concerned about the problem of helping veterans of special operations and their families. This is not surprising, since at the autumn meeting with the leaders of parliamentarians, Vladimir Putin said that this topic should become one of the most important. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin reported that in 2025, deputies adopted 30 laws affecting their regions, and since 2022, parliament has approved a total of 154 initiatives in this area. And in the coming year, the people's deputies are not going to slow down.
In the EP, support for the fighters and their families was named a top priority in the spring session. Among the key bills are granting the right to study free of charge at universities and colleges to the wives of deceased members of the SVO, as well as the automatic extension of land lease agreements for the duration of military service. Another initiative establishes the right to housing for children whose parents, being graduates of orphanages, died defending their Homeland.
"The faction has also introduced a bill that we expect to consider as a matter of priority, which is a permit to open bookstores with patriotic literature in cultural institutions on preferential terms," Evgeny Revenko, deputy head of the United Russia faction, told Izvestia.
The bills to support the participants of the SVR will continue to be introduced by the deputies of the "Fair Russia", Alexey Chepa, deputy head of the SR faction, told Izvestia. In particular, the deputies will develop a bill on providing free land plots to veterans. Earlier, this idea was supported by Vladimir Putin.
— The land is for the participants of the SVO — yes, I agree. Moreover, in some territories — our historical ones — such decisions are already being made. But, in general, you are absolutely right, I would support this and expand this practice," the president said.
Other factions, in particular, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, will actively support the participants in the special operation.
Assistance to families with children and pensioners
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that it is the family with children, their interests and well-being that are at the center of all decisions of the Russian leadership and all projects related to national development.
"This is very important now because it affects the standard and quality of life, but it is also a job for the future to preserve and enhance everything that determines the fate and character of our country," the Russian president said in May 2025.
It is obvious that the deputies will continue to work in this direction. The Liberal Democratic Party promised to focus efforts on helping large families and single parents. Special attention will be paid to the young cells of society. In the new session, a bill on the mandatory provision of separate rooms in dormitories by universities to family students will be considered in the second reading.
The pension issue will also be the subject of parliamentary discussions in the new year. The SR will continue to work on correcting the negative consequences of raising the retirement age, Alexey Chepa said.
— Our party believes that today's pension bill needs to be improved, — the politician emphasized.
Among the priorities of the State Duma is the United Russia bill on mobile pharmacies to simplify access to medicines in remote villages where there are no stationary points. Vladimir Putin raised this issue on a direct line on December 19.
— We plan to consider this bill on January 13, on the first plenary day of our regular session, immediately after the New Year holidays, — Evgeny Revenko shared.
Another important topic of discussion will be the second package of bills aimed at combating cyberbullying, which mainly affects gullible pensioners. The government sent him to the State Duma at the very end of the autumn session. According to the head of the Cabinet of Ministers Mikhail Mishustin, the package of initiatives expands the mechanisms for responding to suspicious calls, as well as introduces the extrajudicial blocking of phishing sites that are created to deceive users and steal their personal data.
Economic and political issues
At the forefront of domestic policy remains the issue of the financial well-being of Russians, which the Liberal Democratic Party considers key. Both the Bank of Russia and Rosstat have recorded a drop in the consumer confidence index and a shift to greater financial prudence among citizens, Leonid Slutsky, the leader of the faction, told Izvestia. "Simply put, people are tightening their belts, denying themselves not only coveted purchases, but also basic needs," he stressed. The cumulative effect creates an increase in debts, utility tariffs, and other mandatory expenses.
— We will seek the adoption of a law according to which banks will be required to automatically reduce rates on existing loans when the Central Bank's key rate is reduced. All LDPR initiatives will continue to be built around a simple and understandable public demand for justice and confidence in the future," Slutsky said.
The Communist Party attaches particular importance to economic adjustment. The party is convinced that the Central Bank's key rate of 16% continues to "extinguish the economy."
— We have a law on the nationalization of the Bank of Russia and the introduction of six system banks. Imagine: we have increased the loan debt of enterprises to 80 trillion rubles, and at the same time 120 trillion is on deposits. It turns out that the banking system has become a rentier instead of the circulatory system of the economy. Profitability in most industries is less than 10%, and it is more profitable for people to keep money on deposit than to invest in the economy," Nikolai Kolomeitsev, the first deputy head of the faction, explained in a conversation with Izvestia.
The press service of the New People party told Izvestia that the NL is going to keep the situation among entrepreneurs under control, especially in connection with tax adjustments, and propose measures that will make life easier for business participants.
— If we see that some decisions are doing more harm than good, we will discuss adjustments with the government. So that such changes would no longer be a shock to the economy, we proposed not to introduce new rules throughout the country, but first to test them in pilot regions. We will work on this idea with colleagues from the Cabinet of Ministers, "New People reported.
The topic of migrants remains traditionally important. On the eve, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced that bills would soon be submitted to parliament, according to which it is planned to reduce the period of medical examination from 90 to 30 days for all foreigners who have arrived in the Russian Federation for more than three months. In addition, the deputies want to impose fines for migrants if they decide to evade medical examinations, as well as oblige hospitals to report infections detected in foreigners in order to promptly deport them in case of danger.
The political sphere will not be ignored either. According to Nikolai Kolomeitsev, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will continue to seek the return of the mandatory mixed electoral system and the abolition of online voting. The Communists submitted the election bill to the State Duma last session, proposing to establish a norm according to which half of the mandates in regional legislative assemblies and municipal councils would be distributed through voting on party lists. The State Duma abolished the quota of party lists in 2021.
Education and artificial intelligence
There is a shortage of personnel in the economy in Russia, to which the President of Russia devoted the last meeting of the State Council last year. In this context, the adopted law on simplified admission to secondary vocational education institutions is important. At the end of last academic year, an experiment was launched in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Lipetsk region: during the GIA, those wishing to enroll in colleges and technical schools were allowed to take not four exams, like their peers, but two in Russian and mathematics.
Last session, the deputies decided to extend the experiment until 2029, consolidating the expansion of the participating regions of the experiment. This year, we can expect that even more subjects will join it, Evgeny Revenko said.
In 2026, the "new People" will propose to allow retake of the Unified State Exam not in one, but in several subjects at once.
— Initially it was our idea, and the president also supported it. In 2025, 135 thousand children took advantage of the retake. Now there is a big request: to allow two or even three subjects to be retaken. This would be useful, especially in technical subjects: mathematics, physics, computer science," the party said.
In addition, NLMK promised to develop projects on engineering personnel training, robotics and the introduction of artificial intelligence. The party is going to expand the program of technological excursions for students to the country's leading enterprises, launched in the regions in the fall of 2025.
United Russia also stressed that the topic of AI will be one of the topics of discussion.
— It is important for us to ensure the support of domestic developers, domestic manufacturers, because we see how quickly and actively these systems are developing, — said Evgeny Revenko.
According to the deputy, there is still no basic law on artificial intelligence in the Russian Federation, so in the new year the discussion of this topic will continue within the walls of the State Duma.
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