Russia upholds Yabloko party’s election ban and jails its deputy chair
Yabloko Struck from Russian Ballot as Deputy Chair Sentenced to Over 11 Years
Poinews.com – Two judicial actions delivered within hours on Monday effectively silenced Russia's sole openly anti-war political party. The Supreme Court confirmed that Yabloko would not appear on the ballot for September's State Duma vote, while a tribunal in Pskov handed down an 11-year-and-one-month prison sentence to the party's deputy chair, Lev Shlosberg, for publicly urging a ceasefire.
The Supreme Court Ruling
The appeals panel validated a lower court's decision to expunge Yabloko's candidate list from the upcoming election. The challenge had been lodged on 7 August by Rodina, an ultranationalist formation whose leader, State Duma deputy Aleksey Zhuravlyov, asserted that his lawyers had "found a huge number of violations" in Yabloko's campaign paperwork.
Party chair Nikolai Rybakov dismissed the proceedings as "a mockery." Speaking outside the courthouse, he added:
"You understand, they understand, that in essence Yabloko has been removed from the election because we stand for peace and freedom. Those who are striking us from the ballot stand for the opposite political course."
The party's entire election manifesto runs just 43 words and calls for "a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and the achievement of peace." Dozens of supporters who had assembled outside the Supreme Court building were rounded up, as were others in adjacent streets and courtyards.
The Pskov Trial of Lev Shlosberg
Hours after the Supreme Court decision, a Pskov court convicted Shlosberg under Russia's statute on "false information about the army," tracing the charge to a Telegram repost he made in February 2022 — days after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A second count, for "discrediting" the armed forces, stemmed from remarks in a YouTube debate where he advocated "the earliest possible ceasefire in Ukraine." He was also barred from administering websites for six years and ordered to serve his sentence in a general-regime penal colony.
Closing arguments were delivered last Friday in the absence of all three of Shlosberg's retained lawyers. The court declined to adjourn and assigned a state-appointed counsel over the defendant's explicit objection. During his final statement, the presiding judge interrupted him repeatedly.
This marks the third criminal case brought against Shlosberg and his second trial since the invasion began. In June 2023 he was labelled a "foreign agent." A further prosecution opened in June 2025 for repeat "discrediting of the army" over a debate with historian Yuri Pivovarov, alongside an additional charge tied to a Telegram post displaying a British tabloid front page that paired a bloodied woman's image with a photograph of Putin. By December 2025, Russia's financial intelligence unit had inscribed his name on its register of "extremists." Throughout the proceedings he rejected every charge as baseless and flagged numerous procedural irregularities.
Shlosberg's Final Words
"Ahead of (Yabloko) lies a new window of historic opportunity. We do not know when it will open, when the light will become strong enough to push back and dispel the darkness. But this will inevitably happen, because the laws of history, like the laws of nature, are stronger than the voluntarism of temporary rulers. No one in history has yet managed to cheat time. Unlike good, evil has no access to immortality."
Addressing those still present after the Monday verdict, he added simply: "You will have to live with this."
International Reaction
Amnesty International denounced the sentence as retaliation. Marie Struthers, the organisation's director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, stated:
"His arbitrary prosecution and conviction are an act of clear retaliation for exercising his right to freedom of expression by calling for peace."
She urged Russian authorities to free Shlosberg at once, overturn his conviction, and repeal the statutes that criminalise anti-war speech.
Yabloko's History and Political Role
Founded in 1993, Yabloko derives its name from the initials of its three creators: Grigory Yavlinsky, Yuri Boldyrev, and Vladimir Lukin. It remains Russia's oldest continuously operating liberal opposition party. The formation has cleared the five-percent parliamentary threshold a single time, in 1999. Between 2006 and 2025 it held membership in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and maintained cooperation with the European Green Party, while its representatives also participated in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Analysts attribute Yabloko's survival within Russia's tightly managed political landscape to the Kremlin's calculation that the party could absorb liberal and disaffected voters. Its leadership, in turn, steered clear of radical activism and coordination with opposition figures operating outside the system — a strategy that permitted the authorities to preserve at least a minimal veneer of democratic plurality.
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