Press Release, 28.01.2025

Photo: Vladimir Yefimov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Vladimir Yefimov, journalist and the leader of the Kamchatka branch of Yabloko, was sentenced to two years in a penal colony in the second criminal case against him on “discrediting the army” (Article 280.3 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). According to the verdict of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court, Yefimov also cannot publish posts on the Internet or administer websites for four years.

The reason for initiating the case was a publication in which Vladimir Yefimov compared the military spending of the Russian budget with spending on education and health care.

The verdict has not yet entered into force. Vladimir Yefimov is at home and plans to appeal the court’s decision.

The verdict in the first criminal case against the leader of the Kamchatka Yabloko was pronounced on 31 March, 2023. Yefimov was fined 200,000 roubles. Before that, he had been brought to administrative responsibility several times under articles on “discrediting the army” and “demonstrating extremist symbols” for his anti-war publications.

Vladimir Yefimov was born in 1954. He is journalist, and founder of the first non-state television company in the USSR, TVK. In January 2021, Yefimov received an award from the local branch of the Union of Journalists of Russia, and in the same year he was elected head of the Public Expert Council for the Development of Civil Society in Kamchatka.

Since the beginning of the special military operation, six members of the Yabloko party have become defendants in criminal cases. In addition to Vladimir Yefimov, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Chairman of the Yabloko branch in Yakutia, and Nikolai Yegorov, head of the Vologda branch of Yabloko, were accused of “discrediting the army.” Like Yefimov, they were fined 200,000 roubles each.

Mikhail Afanasyev, a journalist from Khakassia and a member of Yabloko, was found guilty of spreading “fakes about the army” and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison. The criminal case against Vasily Neustroyev, an activist of the party from St. Petersburg, is currently being considered in court, and Neustroyev is being held in a pretrial detention centre. Neustroev faces up to 15 years in prison, one of the charges brought aginst him is “fakes about the army”.

In January, 2025, Yabloko Deputy Chairman Lev Shlosberg became a defendant in a criminal case on failure to fulfill the duties of a “foreign agent”.

Read more about the persecution of Yabloko members after the start of the special military operation here.