The Supreme Court of Russia decided this Monday to exclude Yabloko, the only political force openly opposed to the war in Ukraine included so far on the electoral ballot, from the upcoming legislative elections scheduled for mid-September, following a lawsuit filed last week for alleged irregular financing of the party.
The Supreme magistrate Viacheslav Kirílov has estimated the complaint filed last Friday by the ultraconservative formation Rodina to exclude Yabloko from the elections. "The requests to cancel the registration" of Yabloko's candidate list for the renewal of the Duma have been accepted, he noted during a hearing reported by the Russian news agency TASS.
In the court session, held this Monday and lasting more than nine hours, representatives of Rodina argued that Yabloko's campaign "violated intellectual property, copyright, anti-extremism laws, and financing laws."
Additionally, an envoy from the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Russia referred to the country's financial intelligence, Rosfinmonitoring, according to which "during the period leading up to the electoral campaign, between July and August 2026, it is recorded that the federal list (of Yabloko) includes individuals who received foreign funding."
The formation, which has rejected these allegations insisting that the questioned resources do not come from foreign sources, has announced that it will challenge the Supreme's ruling with the expectation that it will "revoke" its decision.
"We have five days (to appeal) and we will do everything possible to ensure that Yabloko remains on the electoral ballot," declared to the media the party president, Nikolai Ribakov, currently disqualified for "extremism crimes" linked to the messages of support and condolences he publicly expressed after the death of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
Days earlier, the leader of Rodina, Alexei Zhuravlev, had accused Yabloko of funding its campaign with money from abroad, including funds from Russian magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, included in Moscow's "blacklist" for alleged terrorist activities.
At the end of July, the highest electoral body in Russia ratified the list of 269 candidates from Yabloko, of socioliberal orientation, for the elections to the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly, scheduled for September 18 and 19.