Press Release, 29.05.2025

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The Soviet Court of Ryazan left the journalist and Chairman of the Ryazan Yabloko Konstantin Smirnov in pretrial detention for another two months. Smirnov has been in custody for four months, since 31 January. He does not admit his guilt in the case of “extortion”. Smirnov’s colleagues from Yabloko – the party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman Vladimir Dorokhov and the head of the Yabloko staff Yevgenia Vlasova – came to the court hearing in Ryazan.

Earlier, sureties for Konstantin Smirnov by Yabloko leaders and public persons were sent to the court with a request to change his preventive measure to house arrest or any other, not related to imprisonment.

Such guarantees were sent by Yabloko leaqders Nikolai Rybakov and Grigory Yavlinsky, Honoured Teacher of Russia Yevgeny Bunimovich, human rights defender Valery Borshchev, economist Yevgeny Gontmakher, Deputy Chairs of Yabloko Maxim Kruglov and Anna Cherpanova, as well as deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Alexander Shishlov and Olga Shtannikova, deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Emilia Slabunova and Inna Boluchevskaya, and a number of municipal deputies from Yabloko from different regions of Russia.

Photo: Yevgenia Vlasova, Nikolai Rybakov and Vladimir Dorokhov in front of the building of the Soviet Court of Ryazan on 28 May, 2025 / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Ryazan public figures and journalists also submitted collective appeals to the Investigative Committee and the court requesting to release Konstantin Smirnov from the pre-trial detention centre.

Yabloko believes that Konstantin’s detention is an unjustifiably harsh measure. He did not use violence and is ready to guarantee that if a more lenient measure of restraint is chosen, he will not abscond and will not interfere with the investigation.

It should be noted that the Chairman of the Ryazan Yabloko Konstantin Smirnov has been in pretrial detention since 31 January, 2025, in a case of “extortion”. He does not admit his guilt, and Yabloko is convinced that the persecution of Smirnov represents revenge for his opposing municipal reform – liquidation of local self-governing. The very next day after Smirnov’s arrest, the authorities liquidated the municipality of the rural settlement in Dubrovichy, where he was a local deputy and fought for the preservation of the local council there.

Today, the Ryazan Regional Duma approved the liquidation of rural settlements in the Ryazan region, transforming the region into a district and thus reducing the number of local deputies in the area.

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