Press Release, 28.01.2026

Photo: St. Petersburg City Court / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Considering the appeal against the first-instance ruling, the St.Petersburg City Court found no grounds to overturn it. Thus, the decision of the Vyborgsky District Court of St.Petersburg imposing a fine of 1,500 roubles on Nikolai Rybakov and finding him guilty under the article on “demonstration of extremist symbols and attributes” remained unchanged. Punishment under this article also entails a ban on participation in elections for one year.

The judge rejected the defence’s arguments, despite the fact that a fragment from a ruling in the case of another person, Mikhail Amosov, had been mechanically transferred into the text of the Vyborgsky Court’s judicial act. He had also been found guilty under an article of the same type and fined the same amount – 1,500 roubles. This was reported during the hearing by Nikolai Rybakov’s lawyer, Boris Gruzd.

“We see how the court, with its ruling, is replacing the law with political expediency. Personally, I can, certainly, be removed from elections – I wasn’t born yesterday. But the ideas, the universal human ideas that we defend, cannot be removed, destroyed or trampled upon. They live and will always live in millions of citizens of our country,” Rybakov stated.

The politician’s defence intends to appeal the ruling in the Third Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction.

“We disagree with the court’s ruling. We will appeal in a higher court. We hope that justice and lawfulness will prevail,” Gruzd noted.

The court’s ruling was also commented on by Alexander Shishlov, Head of the Yabloko faction in the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly and Coordinator of the party’s Federal Political Committee, who was present at the court hearing:

“Today’s court hearing clearly demonstrated that this administrative case is aimed not at countering extremism, but at preventing Yabloko Party Chair Nikolai Rybakov from participating in elections. The Сity Сourt’s ruling will be appealed,” Shishlov stressed.

It should be noted that the grounds for initiating the administrative case (Article 20.3, Part 1 of the Russian Federation’s Code of Administrative Offences) against Rybakov was his publication of condolences in connection with Alexei Navalny’s death on his page on the social network VKontakte.

Earlier, on 27 November, the Kalininsky District Court of St. Petersburg found St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy from Yabloko Olga Shtannikova guilty under an article of the same type for a 2013 publication on her VKontakte page which concerned an anti-corruption investigation.