Russia's oldest liberal party excluded from State Duma race after Supreme Court decision

Russia's Supreme Court dealt a decisive blow to the country's remaining liberal opposition on Monday, cancelling the registration of the Yabloko party's federal candidate list for next month's State Duma elections in a ruling that effectively removes the only registered pro-peace platform from the nationwide party-list ballot. The court, sitting in Moscow, granted a lawsuit filed by the small nationalist party Rodina, which had accused Yabloko of receiving foreign funding, violating copyright law, and promoting "extremism," with the disqualification primarily resting on alleged copyright infringements during campaign activities, including the unauthorised use of song lyrics, film footage, photographs, and even images generated by artificial intelligence. Election authorities and state prosecutors had supported the claims, and the Central Election Commission, which had unexpectedly approved more than 400 Yabloko candidates for the September parliamentary elections just last month, provided evidence during the hearing that it said documented the violations.

In a dramatic session that drew hundreds of supporters to the streets outside the court, Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov rejected the allegations of foreign funding, insisting that his party was financed exclusively by Russian citizens and answered to them and the election commission. The court had briefly adjourned the hearing to require non-disclosure agreements from Yabloko's legal team before allowing them to review classified Rosfinmonitoring data, which election officials said revealed foreign financial transfers to several Yabloko candidates in 2025. Rybakov, addressing supporters after the ruling, said the party would appeal within the five-day deadline and would do everything possible to participate in the election, making a pointed reference to the war in Ukraine by noting how many people wanted peace and an end to the loss of life.

The ruling was met with chants of "Shame! Shame!" from the crowd of approximately 500 people who had gathered outside the Supreme Court, with supporters lining up to enter a courtroom that could accommodate only 150. Law enforcement officers prepared to disperse the gathering, and footage published by the RusNews media outlet captured a police officer warning the crowd through a loudspeaker that they had two minutes to leave, adding that "No one will come to get you out of the military enlistment offices afterward." The legal push to remove Yabloko from the ballot comes against a backdrop of sustained pressure on the party, which has seen several of its prominent members jailed in recent years for their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, and its disqualification leaves Russia's political landscape further stripped of independent voices ahead of the parliamentary vote.