Why this small party is barred from Russia's election
Russia's supreme court has barred the anti-war Yabloko party from participating in upcoming parliamentary elections. Additionally, the party's deputy chairman, Lev Shlosberg, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine.
Why it matters
This move highlights the systematic dismantling of political opposition and the suppression of dissent within Russia regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Russia's supreme court barred the marginal, anti-war Yabloko party from contesting Russia's federal parliamentary elections in mid-September.
Why did Russian authorities tolerate Yabloko for so long and why did they move now to silence the party at the polls?
It is almost hard to believe that there is still a political party in Vladimir Putin's Russia that opposes the war in Ukraine.
But the Yabloko party, founded in the early 1990s, does just that.
It openly calls for a ceasefire in defiance of the Kremlin and campaigns for democratic reform in Russia.
Yabloko had registered to run candidates in September's federal parliamentary elections, the first since the start of Russia's invasion.
However, earlier this month, Russia’s supreme court barred the party from fielding candidates, following a complaint from a pro-Kremlin nationalist party over alleged copyright infringements on Yabloko's application documents.
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