The Supreme Court of Russia excluded from the legislative elections the only party that opposes the war in Ukraine

Yábloko leader Nikolái Ribakov, along with his lawyers, during the hearing in which the exclusion of the party from the legislative elections was discussed (REUTERS/Yulia Morozova)The Supreme Court of Russia canceled this Monday the registration of Yábloko's federal candidate list for the State Duma elections, the lower house of Parliament, scheduled for September 19 and 20. The decision excludes from the race the only legally registered political formation that openly opposes the war in Ukraine and calls for peace negotiations. The ruling responded to a lawsuit filed by Ródina (Fatherland), an ultranationalist party allied with the Kremlin, which accused Yábloko of receiving foreign funding, infringing copyright laws, and promoting “extremism.” The Central Electoral Commission (CEC), the body overseeing Russian elections, supported the complaint during the hearing. The case was presided over by Judge Viacheslav Kirílov, the same magistrate who in 2021 ordered the dissolution of Memorial, the human rights organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Kirílov considered the exclusion of Yábloko from the ballot justified. Representatives of the CEC presented a document to the court that, according to their testimony, would confirm transfers of funds from abroad to several Yábloko candidates during 2025, based on data from Rosfinmonitoring, the state agency that supervises the Russian financial system and compiles the official list of individuals linked to extremism. Judge Viacheslav Kirílov presides over the hearing of the Russian Supreme Court that examined the lawsuit against Yábloko's participation in the September parliamentary elections (REUTERS)Founded in 1993 and oriented towards social liberalism, Yábloko had managed to have its list of 269 candidates approved by the CEC at the end of July, ranking second on the ballot behind United Russia, the Kremlin's party. The formation announced it would appeal the Supreme Court's decision, for which it has five days. Nikolái Ribakov, the party leader, described the judicial offensive against him as political. “The key difference between us is that we are in favor of peace, and they are in favor of bloodshed. They understand that people want to vote for peace. And they are afraid. That’s why they want to exclude us from the elections,” he declared before the court, according to the EFE agency. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Russian Supreme Court in Moscow to follow the hearing. Upon learning of the ruling, they chanted protest slogans. A police officer warned through a megaphone that those who did not disperse within a few minutes could be taken to military recruitment offices. The exclusion is part of an escalation of judicial pressure against the Russian opposition, intensified after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, numerous opposition leaders have been imprisoned, declared “foreign agents,” or forced into exile. Yábloko itself had been excluded in July from the regional elections in Karelia and municipal elections in Saint Petersburg, one of its historic strongholds, due to alleged procedural defects. The party had distanced itself days before the ruling from an opposition call in exile, led by Yulia Naválnaya, widow of Alexéi Navalny, to vote for Yábloko in September, in an attempt to avoid further accusations of foreign support. With Yábloko's removal from the ballot, the Duma resulting from the September elections will be composed exclusively of formations supporting the continuation of the war, consolidating the closure of the institutional space for any political dissent within the rules of the Russian system.