Press Release, 30.11.2024

Photo: Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov made a report at the Federal Council of Yabloko, where he spoke about the state of affairs in the party and the main objectives and areas of work in the recent years.

The party leader noted that even in the situation of pressure, threats and danger in which Yabloko operates, new people come to the party every day, send applications to become candidate members and then members of the party. Recently, the party crossed a significant milestone, considerably increasing the number of its supporters in the electronic party, who expressed their readiness to work with Yabloko and receive information from the party – 1,700,267 people.

Rybakov said that that Yabloko has 78 regional branches of Yabloko and 670 grassroots organisations and local branches throughout the country. He also spoke about the party’s deputies in the regional parliaments of St. Petersburg, Karelia and the Pskov region, and in the Dumas (city parliaments) of six regional capitals – Kaluga, Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, Petrozavodsk, Yekaterinburg and Tomsk. In local self-government bodies, Yabloko deputies were elected in 21 federal subjects.

According to Rybakov, party members had been under pressure from the very beginning of Yabloko’s creation, but it increased significantly after February 24, 2022. Thus, six party members became defendants in criminal cases related to the new articles of the Criminal Code introduced after 24 February, 2022. Three out of them were found guilty of “discrediting the army” – the leaders of the party’s regional branches in Yakutia (Anatoly Nogovitsyn), Kamchatka (Vladimir Yefimov) and the Vologda region (Nikolai Yegorov).

“Mikhail Afanasyev, the legendary Russian journalist and the investigative reporter, is perhaps in the most difficult situation of all our colleagues. He was convicted in Khakassia, and sentenced to 5 years and 6 months of imprisonment under the article on “fakes about the army”. This is an outstanding example of not only a civic position, but also of journalistic service. I came to Khakassia, to Abakan, several times for the trials. You can imagine that despite the fact that Mikhail understood what prospects he faced in such a case, he did not disclose his sources in the court. I know that many of us write letters to him. This is very much needed in such a difficult situation. Recently, the court again refused to change the regime of serving his punishment, to our great regret,” Rybakov emphasised.

Rybakov also recalled the criminal cases against Vasily Neustroyev, a party member from St. Petersburg, and Lev Shlosberg, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko from the Pskov region, and that ten more party activists received administrative arrests.

The Yabloko leader explained that in the context of the cubing of public politics, the party focused on renewing the party, strengthening it for the future, in order to be ready for the coming changes and have a reform plan, and form a team who could conduct changes in the future. He stressed that this was the direction in which Yabloko had been working. Among the significant projects, Rybakov named the preparation of the “Constitution of Free People” – alternative amendments to the Basic Law that no other political party in Russia has been able to propose. Rybakov also noted the work of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives, the Anti-Corruption Policy Centre, and the Analytical Centre of the party.

Nikolai Rybakov called the work on de-Stalinisation and de-Bolshevisation one of the most important areas of the party’s educational, public awareness and outreach activities. He noted that there still had been no state legal assessment of those events. The head of the party said that Yabloko would carry out this work in completely different directions – this includes publishing books, holding round tables, and visiting memorial sites:

“I am asked why I so often visit memorials associated, among other things, with victims of political repression [of the Stalin’s period]. I try to do this on almost every trip to the regions. And I will go on doing this, because I believe that this is extremely important. We have not done this enough, since there are still people who go with flowers to the grave of the man who personally signed the norms of execution, which means that we must continue to do this more and on a constant basis. In the future Russia, there should be no monuments to Stalin,” Rybakov said.

Rybakov spoke in detail about the elections after 24 February, 2022. Over the past three years (2022, 2023, and 2024), almost 1,000 people participated in election campaigns from the party in 44 regions of Russia. Party candidates from rural settlements to by-elections to the State Duma campaigned under “For Peace and Freedom!” slogan. As a result, 33 people were elected. Even under these conditions, the party received 277,899 votes according to official data. All this despite multi-day voting, the lack of control over the vote counting and the voting process, the introduction of an electronic voting system. The absolute majority of candidates from the party do not even get registered in the race, because they are removed from elections under any pretexts. Even in cases when Yabloko candidates manage to get registered by electoral commissions, these decisions are later overturned through the courts.

“I understand perfectly well the risks for people participating in elections. But we will still participate in election campaigns. And the key word here is “campaigns”. It is through campaigns when we can convey to people our position “For Peace and Freedom!”. Since 2022, our party have been coming out at any election, at any level, with an agenda on the need to quickly conclude a ceasefire agreement.”

The Chairman of Yabloko named several examples of high results that candidates for “For Peace and Freedom” received. Thus, in 2022, Vladimir Sevostyanov from the Sverdlovsk region received 23.89% in the city of Sukhoi Log, and Alexander Zagaynov received 23.32% in the elections to the Yesaulsky village council, in the Krasnoyarsk region. In 2023, the party retained its factions in the city parliaments in Veliky Novgorod and Yekaterinburg. Olga Kolokolova in the Perm Territory campaigning under the same slogan received 54.36%. In 2024, in the Pskov Region, seven deputies were elected on the party lists, and school teacher of Russian language and literature Yelena Tulina in the Novgorod Region received 25.15%.

«Мы будем продолжать участвовать в избирательных кампаниях. В 2025 году нам предстоят кампании в Татарстане, Удмуртии, Чувашии, Астрахани, Владимире, Воронеже, Иваново, Костроме, Нижнем Новгороде, Новосибирске, Орле, Ростове, Смоленске, Тамбове, Томске, Челябинске. Мы говорим сейчас об избирательной кампании 2025 года и фактически даем уже старт избирательной кампании 2026 года по выборам Государственной Думы. Никто не должен сомневаться, что мы к ней готовы».

“We will continue to participate in election campaigns. In 2025, we will have campaigns in Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Chuvashia, Astrakhan, Vladimir, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Orel, Rostov, Smolensk, Tambov, Tomsk, and Chelyabinsk. We are now talking about the 2025 election campaign and are actually already launching the 2026 election campaign for the State Duma. No one should doubt that we are ready for it.”

Rybakov also named support for political prisoners as another important area of ​​work. This includes attending court hearings, collecting funds for lawyers, charity auctions, and actions of writing letters to political prisoners held in many regions of Russia. In Moscow alone, activists wrote 10,185 letters to political prisoners.

Charity work is also one of the party’s areas of work. Yabloko provides support to the Nochlezhka fund helping homeless people, organises New Year’s parties for refugee children, and helped flood victims in the Orenburg region.

Rybakov emphasised the importance of the position of the party chosen after 24 February 2022. Yabloko’s position on the need for an urgent ceasefire was condemned then, but time has shown that this position is today the only way out of the situation where people are dying every day.

The party leader called on the regions to work more actively to attract supporters to the party, as Yabloko has different tools to prepare the party for future changes not only in terms of content, but also in terms of people. This work is carried out through the Federal Party School, the Yabloko Party University, publications on human rights issues, analysis of historical events, professional discussions, as well as lectures and book launches.

In conclusion, Nikolai Rybakov emphasised that the party will continue to work to return the country to the sound political course:

“The country needs us, the future needs us, and, forgive me, we need ourselves in order to save human lives. We are ready to work, we have people who can work at the local level, and at the level of regional parliaments, and at the level of the State Duma. But I want to assure everyone that we have never betrayed our values and will never do so. We will not betray our convictions in exchange for any mandates. We will be who we are. We will never do mean things, we will never support murder, we will never support persecution on any grounds. We think differently”.