Press Release, 2.02.2026

Photo: The Pskov Regional Court / Photo from the Pskov City Duma website

The Pskov Regional Court has reduced on appeal the amount to be paid to Yabloko by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation from 196,452 roubles (approximately USD 1,964.52) to 10,000 roubles (approximately USD 100). The compensation of more than 196,000 roubles had been awarded to the party by the court of first instance for the unlawful removal of Yabloko’s lists from the 2023 elections in the Bezhanitsky District of the Pskov Region. The Ministry of Finance appealed against this decision and succeeded on appeal in reducing the payment almost twenty-fold. Pskov Yabloko regards this outcome as disrespectful to the Constitutional Court’s ruling and will appeal against it at the cassation level.

It should be noted that municipal elections were held in the Pskov Region in 2023. The registration of Yabloko’s lists of candidates was challenged in the courts by representatives of the Party of Growth, A Just Russia, and the Pensioners’ Party. In substantiating their claims, they stated that Yabloko’s documents for submission to the electoral commissions had been signed on 16 and 17 July (by the new Chairman of the regional branch, Artur Gaiduk, who had been elected on 24 June), whilst information about him had been entered by the tax inspectorate into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE) only on 18 July.

The courts of general jurisdiction supported this position, and in September 2023, before the single voting day, Yabloko appealed to the Supreme Court of Russia, but three months later the Supreme Court refused to consider the complaints on their merits. In 2024, Yabloko then submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Court, stating that the electoral legislation had been misinterpreted by the courts and that Artur Gaiduk had had the right to sign documents a week before the data were entered into the USRLE, having been elected head of the branch.

In March 2025, the Constitutional Court agreed with Yabloko and confirmed that the head of a political organisation becomes such immediately upon election, not from the moment the record of this is entered into the USRLE. The Constitutional Court drew attention to the fact that the interpretation of the law adhered to by the courts of four instances constituted a departure from the requirements of the Constitution and diminished voters’ freedom of expression.

On 18 August 2025, the judge of the Bezhanitsky District Court granted the application for the use of compensatory mechanisms and awarded Pskov Yabloko 196,452 roubles in compensation: of this, 96,452 roubles represented actual expenses incurred in conducting the election campaign, 50,000 roubles for the violation of the constitutional right to participate in elections, and 50,000 roubles as compensation for persistence in achieving the legal objective of protecting its rights.

In total, the legal proceedings regarding compensation for Yabloko’s removal from the municipal elections in 2023 concern seven districts of the Pskov Region. In six of them, district courts have already awarded compensation — everywhere except the Pechorsky District, where proceedings are still ongoing — totalling more than 1,116,000 roubles. In particular, Pskov Yabloko’s claims have also been upheld by the Strugo-Krasnensky District Court and the Pytalovsky District Court, as well as by courts in the Opochetsky and Novorzhevsky Districts.

The Ministry of Finance has appealed against all the compensation awards and has already lost more than 400,000 roubles in two cases.

The third appeal took place on 29 January 2026. The panel of the Civil Cases Division of the Pskov Regional Court considered the Ministry of Finance of Russia’s appeal against the decision of the Bezhanitsky District Court on Pskov Yabloko’s claim for recovery of compensation for the party list’s exclusion from participation in the 2023 election campaign.

Consideration of the appeal on its merits took less than half an hour, and as a result the Pskov Regional Court overturned the decision of the Bezhanitsky District Court and then made a new decision — to award only 10,000 roubles.

“Information that the Pskov Regional Court had overturned the decision of the Bezhanitsky District Court and made a new decision was posted in the Telegram channel ‘Joint Press Service of the Courts of Pskov’ at 15:02, and in the ‘Press Service of the Courts of the Pskov Region’ group on the VK social network at 15:03, that is, virtually immediately after the court hearing had ended (at approximately 15:00). Given the volume and quality of the text posted on these resources by the court press service, Yabloko’s representative at the court hearing formed a firm conviction that the question of overturning the decision of the court of first instance had been decided in advance, and that the text of the press release and the operative part of the appellate ruling had been written before the court hearing had begun,” lawyer Maxim Kopytov stated.

The lawyers representing Yabloko’s interests in these proceedings emphasise that the compensation awarded is insufficient, and that the decision of the Pskov Regional Court will be appealed by way of cassation.