Press release, 19.02.2014

On March 1st, the YABLOKO party will form its own column at the opposition march, its slogan will be “No war with Ukraine”.
YABLOKO will also conduct anti-war actions in a number of Russia’s cities: St.Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Voronezh, Kazan. In St. Petersburg the authorities refused to authorize any of the seven routes for the march suggested by the opposition. The negotiations will take place today.

A month before the scheduled date of the opposition march YABLOKO called all the democratic opposition political forces in Russia and all the citizens who agree that the war is the main cause of the economic crisis, to name the coming mass opposition action an Anti-war march [not an Anti-crisis one, as it was suggested by the organisers of the march].

“The main slogan of the Russian democratic opposition should be the stop of interference in Ukraine’s affairs and stoppage of military actions in the territory of the fraternal country. This task is entirely within the competence of the political leadership of Russia. This demand must be uncompromising, one cannot water down and dissolve this request in the long list of claims to the authorities,” noted YABLOKO Political Committee members.

“We consider the name of the coming event a mistake as well as its extremely broad requirements -“for all the good”. A march cannot stop the crisis. Our stance was supported by a large number of opposition politicians and activists during the meeting of the protest actions Organising committee, which has conducted all the mass actions of recent years. But the Committee is actually pushed aside from decision making. Apparently, all the decisions in favour of the authorities are being personally made by Alexei Navalny,” said Secretary of YABLOKO Political Committee Galina Mikhaleva.

“We call everybody to come to the march and we’ll also participate in it and form our own anti-war column. We will come because the majority of the participants of the event share our position,” said Mikhaleva.

The routes of opposition actions in Moscow and other regions of Russia will be announced after obtaining authorization of the authorities.