Russia bars anti-war party from parliamentary election

On Monday, Russia's Supreme Court ruled that the liberal Yabloko party is ineligible to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections, effectively excluding the sole officially registered political group that opposes Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine. The decision comes more than four years after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and underscores the Kremlin's intolerance for anti-war sentiments, further restricting the already limited scope for political dissent in the country.

The court's ruling upholds a lawsuit filed by the pro-Kremlin nationalist party Rodina, which accused Yabloko of receiving undisclosed campaign contributions, purportedly from Western sources, among other grievances. Yabloko's leader, Nikolai Rybakov, denied the allegations, stating that no evidence was presented to support them and labeling the case as an unconstitutional assault on freedom of thought by political adversaries aiming to remove Yabloko as a rival.

Despite the police presence, a few hundred Yabloko supporters, predominantly young individuals, demonstrated their support for the party during the hearing by carrying apples, as the Russian word for apple bears resemblance to Yabloko. One of the protesters even dressed in a Russian flag as a cape.