Kremlin Removes Even Weak Opposition as Ukraine War Takes Toll

Russia's Supreme Court has stripped Yabloko, the country's sole registered anti-war party, from the upcoming parliamentary election. Despite having no State Duma seats or limited regional representation, Yabloko still threatens the Kremlin as Russian President Vladimir Putin's and United Russia's approval ratings plummet. The party was initially registered in 1993 by Grigory Yavlinsky and later became the electoral bloc of Yavlinsky, Yury Boldyrev, and Vladimir Lukin.

Their name combined the first three letters of each founder's surname, forming Yabloko. However, after Putin tightened his control over Russian politics in the 2000s, Yabloko lost its national representation. The party was once a significant liberal force, but its history also overlaps with other prominent Putin opponents, such as Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015, and Alexey Navalny, whose political career began in Yabloko before he was expelled in 2007.

Navalny's current support for Yabloko highlights the limited political choices available in Russia. Deputy party chairman Maxim Kruglov was recently sentenced to seven years in prison for social-media posts about civilian deaths in Ukraine, described by Amnesty International as a punishment for peacefully opposing Russia's aggression.

The political party system in Russia is strictly managed, with the presidential administration determining which parties are allowed meaningful access to national politics and the extent of opposition they can display. The war in Ukraine has caused a significant toll on Russian society, with Putin's approval rating declining sharply in July.

Despite the party's stance on Ukraine, Yabloko's historical context and the Russian opposition's ambiguous attitude toward the war have been subject to scrutiny.