The situation at a glance: Election exclusion: Russian opposition party wants to fight

After the verdict on their exclusion from the parliamentary election in Russia, the liberal opposition party Yabloko wants to continue to fight for their participation in the vote. "You are mistaken if you think that with a stroke of the pen you can write off millions of people who want peace, freedom and a normal future for their country," Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov wrote in the evening on Telegram.

The party announced that it would appeal against the verdict. Rybakov thanked the hundreds of people who had come to support them in front of the court. "Nothing is over. Everything is just beginning," he said.

Russia's Supreme Court had excluded the party, which is running against Moscow's war of aggression, from the parliamentary election in September on Monday. Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov, who had already banned the human rights organization Memorial, granted a complaint from the Kremlin-friendly nationalist party Rodina in Moscow, which had complained about a variety of violations of Russian laws in the approval of the opposition party.

"We do not agree with the decision made and will appeal against it," Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky wrote on Telegram. "We hope that the government will take into account the social demand for peace, freedom and a life without fear in its policy." It is not about the fate of Yabloko, but about that of Russia.

Nawalnaya: Kremlin is afraid

The exclusion of Yabloko had been predictable, political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya wrote on Telegram after the verdict. It was not about the Kremlin changing its mind and correcting a mistake, she said. It was about the support for Yabloko from the opposition that had been pushed out of the country. "The risk that the election campaign would turn into a fight for or against peace (i.e. into a debate about the war) was quite high and this obviously did not fit into the plans."

The Central Election Commission had still decided unanimously in July to allow Yabloko to participate in the Duma election. Since then, the opposition party has received a massive influx of supporters - especially from young people who reject Putin's war against Ukraine. Yabloko wants to run in the election with the slogan "For Peace and Freedom" and for a "Life without Fear". According to surveys, a majority of Russians want an end to the war against Ukraine, which has been going on for almost four and a half years.

Recently, numerous opposition figures in exile also called on Russians to vote for Yabloko. Opposition politician Yulia Nawalnaya, for example, described the exclusion of Yabloko from the election as a sign of the Kremlin's fear of opponents of the war. The Kremlin had realized that people in Russia had started to come together, said the widow of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was killed in a penal colony.

It was not so much just about the Yabloko party, which demands a ceasefire and peace negotiations in the Russian war of aggression, Nawalnaya said in her exile abroad. "It's about millions of Russians getting the opportunity to say what they really think about Putin and the war," she explained on platform X with a view to the Duma election.

The Navalny team is calling on people in Russia to vote for any party from September 18 to 20 - just not for the Kremlin party United Russia. "You can tell the story on TV as often as you like that the power apparatus has everything under control and that people allegedly can't influence anything," Nawalnaya said.

Prosecution and Kremlin-friendly party confident of victory

The Rodina representatives, supported by the prosecutor's office, were confident and convinced of victory from the start. The Kremlin-friendly party accuses Yabloko of violating copyrights in their election campaign material - for example, in depictions of doves of peace - and of spending an inadmissibly large amount of money on election advertising on the Internet. In addition, Yabloko is said to have received 16,900 rubles (around 178 euros) in election financing from the USA and Germany.

Yabloko lawyers disputed the points in the 40-page complaint. Rybakov criticized that Rodina had not presented any evidence for the allegations, but was formulating inventions and absurd thoughts. Yabloko had committed no legal violations, he said in his closing statement.