Yabloko Leader Fined Over Anti-War Slogans on Duma Ballots

A court in St. Petersburg fined Nikolai Rybakov, chairman of the Russian opposition party Yabloko, 1,000 rubles ($11.80) on Friday, Oct. 9, for writing anti-war slogans across his ballots during last month’s State Duma elections, The Moscow Times reported. The Vyborgsky District Court found Rybakov guilty of disorderly conduct after police accused him of “ignoring society’s interests, showing disrespect, and breaking public order.”JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. While casting his ballot at a polling station on Sept. 20, the party leader had written four Yabloko campaign slogans across the papers: “For Peace,” “For Freedom,” “For a Life Without Fear,” and “For a Ceasefire Agreement.” Rybakov and his legal defense sought the dismissal of all administrative charges, maintaining that spoiling an election ballot constitutes a legally recognized form of political expression under Russian law. “I expressed my civic stance that I couldn’t vote because there was no one to vote for,” Rybakov stated during an earlier court session. “Over 900,000 voters did the exact same thing by invalidating their ballots.” Rybakov was not present in the courtroom for Friday’s verdict, which was briefly disrupted by an emergency building evacuation. Systemic crackdown on Yabloko The administrative fine comes amid accelerating state pressure against Yabloko, Russia’s oldest liberal party and the only officially registered political organization that campaigned on an explicit platform for peace during the 2026 parliamentary elections. Other Topics of Interest US Envoys Pressure Kyiv on Refinery Strikes US Envoys Witkoff and Kushner press Kyiv to halt refinery strikes as Trump strikes a diesel deal with Putin. Three prominent Yabloko figures have received prison sentences over the past four months, including party activist Yelena Perepelitsa on Thursday. Ahead of the Sept. 18-20 legislative vote, electoral authorities systematically excluded Yabloko from contesting the party-list ballot for the lower house. In single-mandate constituencies where individual members were permitted to launch campaigns, candidates faced arbitrary police detentions, disqualifications, and administrative interference. The party was concurrently barred from contesting nearly all regional legislative ballots held nationwide. The northwestern Novgorod region was the sole jurisdiction where Yabloko managed to contest the race and surpass the statutory 5 percent threshold to secure regional representation. The suppression of anti-war dissent widened following the election, in which the ruling United Russia party secured a record majority in the 450-seat State Duma. On Sunday, Oct. 4, Russian police detained approximately 60 demonstrators during an authorized Communist Party (KPRF) demonstration in Moscow after attendees began chanting slogans criticizing censorship, demanding the release of political prisoners, and shouting “Down with the Tsar.” Independent monitoring group OVD-Info reported that roughly 30 Yabloko members and 26 KPRF representatives were among those detained in the capital. International non-recognition The prosecution of opposition figures follows widespread international condemnation of the electoral process, which Russian authorities also conducted across occupied territories of southern and eastern Ukraine. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a formal resolution refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the newly formed State Duma, determining that the Sept. 18-20 vote was neither free nor fair. Lawmakers representing 46 member states affirmed that forced participation in Russian-organized elections within occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea violates international law and cannot confer sovereignty to the Russian Federation. The resolution called on European governments to enforce diplomatic isolation against the legislature, broaden personal sanctions against Russia’s Central Election Commission, and restrict Schengen visa privileges for Russian officials. Ukrainian authorities and international human rights monitors documented that early voting in occupied Ukrainian settlements was conducted under the direct supervision of armed Russian servicemen and mobile election squads without independent observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), prompting Kyiv to enact statutory sanctions against 44 individuals involved in administering the vote. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 90% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.