Press Release, 16.06.2023

Photo: Sergei Mitrokhin / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Sergei Mitrokhin decided not to participate in elections of the Moscow Mayor because of the inability to campaign for peace with Ukraine. He made this announcement at the conference of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. Mitrokhin also stressed that he had no doubts that a candidate with such a stance would not be allowed to participate in the elections. Yabloko supported his stand and decided not to nominate another candidate.

Earlier, the Regional Council of the Moscow branch of Yabloko recommended that Sergei Mitrokhin, a Moscow City Duma deputy, a member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, and Chairman of the party in 2008-2015, be nominated to run for the Mayor of Moscow.

In spring the federal governing bodies of the party (the Political Committee and the Bureau) announced that Yabloko should nominated for the 2023 elections only those candidates who fully shared the party’s stand on the need to conclude a ceasefire agreement in Ukraine, investigate all war crimes, exchange prisoners “all for all” and release political prisoners, and who intend to dedicate their elections campaigns to these issues.

“The most important thing is what is happening in Ukraine now, and how the party evaluates it. Saving human lives is the highest value and the most important goal that we should set. It is more important than borders, geopolitical strategies, and real or unreal threats,” Mitrokhin said.

He also recalled that the municipal filter assumed that a candidate with such a stance had to go not to his voters first, but to municipal deputies the majority of whom were from United Russia or other pro-government parties, and one hundred percent of whom had a stand opposite to that of Yabloko.

“On the one hand, I will declare all this [about peace], on the other, I will beg them for signatures, knowing that I will not receive anything. This is a situation beyond the absurd. This is not even a theatre of the absurd, but a circus of the absurd. I don’t want to work as a clown,” Mitrokhin said.

Other leaders of Yabloko supported the decision of Sergei Mitrokhin. This was stated in their speeches by party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the Moscow branch of Yabloko Sergei Ivanenko and head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma Maxim Kruglov.

Sergei Mitrokhin

is a deputy of the Moscow City Duma,

a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party,

Yabloko party Chairman in 2008-2015

Candidate of Political Sciences.