On 12 March Kursk elected new members to its 45-seat Oblast Duma. According to the new rules, 22 seats were filled through single-member districts and 23 by party list. Of the 42 seats filled, the pro-Kremlin United Russia took 30, a two-thirds majority, the Communist Party, 4, Party of Life, 3, the Democratic Party of Russia and Rodina each took 1, and there are 3 independents. Most of the candidates elected in the districts are businessmen and high-level regional public officials. Since Governor Aleksandr Mikhailov, a former Communist, headed the United Russia list, the pro-Kremlin party now controls both the executive and legislative branches in the region. This merger of United Russia and the Communists made the elections in Kursk somewhat unusual.

Turnout was 43 percent, well above the necessary 20 percent. Rural residents were the most active voters, with nearly 50 percent turnout. In the major cities of Kursk and Kurchatov, turnout did not top 23 percent in some precincts.

Only three parties crossed the 7 percent barrier required to win seats in the Duma in the party-list voting: United Russia (37.36%), Communists (11.28%), and the Party of Life (7.26%). Several parties were extremely close to the barrier: Democratic Party of Russia (6.99%), Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) (6.88%), and the Union of Right Forces (SPS) (6.54%). The Russian Party of Pensioners, Agrarian Party of Russia, and the Patriots were not competitive. Almost 10 percent of the voters cast their ballot marked "against all" overall and in three districts "against all" was the top vote-getter, necessitating repeat elections. In the district were former Russian vice president and Kursk governor Aleksandr Rutskoi had planned to run before the court canceled his registration, more than 30 percent of the voters rejected all candidates.

On 17 March, SPS, LDPR, and the People's Will party filed complaints about alleged irregularities in the balloting to the Central Electoral Commission and the president, calling on them to examine the results more carefully. Rutskoi had led the People's Will party list, but the court struck it from the elections, claiming that it had improperly registered its candidates. The three parties complained that an unusually large number of voters cast their ballots at home rather than coming to the polling place. They also complained that a suspiciously large number of ballots had been declared invalid. Members of the local electoral commission rejected the accusations, saying that they expected such complaints from SPS and LDPR since they were so close to passing the 7 percent barrier, but did not quite make it.

The campaign was filled with scandals and court cases. Rodina was struck from running in the party-list part of the elections. The reason for removing Rodina was a complaint from the Kursk branch of the Party of Pensioners focusing on the way that Rodina compiled its party list and for violations of the federal law on political parties, because Rodina allegedly purchased votes by handing out automobile air fresheners with the party symbol. The LDPR also ran into trouble in February when it broadcast cartoon advertisements claiming that Governor Mikhailov was an alcoholic. The cartoons were only broadcast once and then the oblast electoral commission forbid their broadcast as insulting the honor and dignity of the governor and president. The Central Electoral Commission overturned this decision, but the local television stations refused to broadcast the ads. The LDPR claimed that they were being censored, but the local TV stations said that they did not want to participate in a crime since the oblast procurator had filed slander charges in relation to the ads.

Five Russian natural gas pipelines cross Kursk Oblast into Ukraine: three carry gas to the European Union and two take it to Ukraine. When Russia shut off the gas supply on 1 January, it did so in the Kursk Oblast city of Sudzha. On new year's day, Russia's three main television networks carried live coverage of the pipe closing from the site. Even though bookmakers took wagers at odds of 3:1 that the gas would be cut off, many did not believe that such a step was possible.

The shutdown presented problems for the villages of Tetkino and Glushkovo, where about 3,000 people live. Thanks to infrastructure built during the Soviet era, these residents receive their gas from Ukraine. They faced the danger that they would lose energy at a time when the temperature was -10 degree Celsius. The Emergencies Ministry announced on 29 December that it was taking special measures to insure that the residents would not be left in the cold. In particular, the ministry brought 300 gasoline-powered electricity generators and electric heaters to the village of Glushkovo. Luckily, there was no emergency: either the Ukrainians forgot to turn off the gas to the two villages or they simply did not want to do it. Thus a small crisis was averted.