LEONID GORBENKO

in a two-man run-off, taking 56 percent of the vote. The victory was the first for a Kremlin-backed challenger in this year’s election cycle, in which about a third of Russia’s eighty-nine regions choose chief executives. But Kaliningrad is no bellwether. The incumbent took the blame for economic problems, while Yegorov had support not just from Moscow but from the local economic-liberal coalition, which holds more than a third of the seats in the regional legislature.