Press Release, 19.02.2026

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yabloko party Chair Nikolai Rybakov addressed the Legislative Assembly of the Tver Region, where he spoke about how throughout all four years of the military operations Yabloko had been advocating for the earliest possible ceasefire agreement and the preservation of human lives.

In Rybakov’s view, an understanding of the value of human life needs to be restored to Russian politics, so that the country’s resources would be spent not on confrontation but on development, science and culture. During his address, Rybakov spoke about the general mood among Russians today:

“People are tired. They want peace. People do not want to live in constant fear for their future, for their lives, for their children. They want normal life — for themselves, their parents and their children. I believe our country deserves this. It deserves to honour the memory of the past while thinking of the living,” Rybakov stated.

Rybakov also raised the issue of the dangers of rehabilitation of Stalinism, both in the Tver Region and across the country:

“It is appalling that busts of Joseph Stalin, Sergei Kirov and Mikhail Kalinin have been erected in Mednoye. And it is entirely unacceptable and impermissible to justify the installation of Stalin’s bust on the grounds that he was the country’s wartime leader. Monuments should be erected to the victims of terror, not to those who killed them,” Rybakov emphasised.

Rybakov also drew attention to the revival of the practices of that era — censorship and intolerance of dissenting opinion — and criticised Roskomnadzor’s (the Russian telecommunications watchdog) decision to block the popular Telegram messenger:

“When Roskomnadzor first blocks YouTube, then WhatsApp, and now Telegram — which you all make excellent use of, and I subscribed to the Legislative Assembly’s Telegram channel only yesterday — for our people, access to prompt communication, including through Telegram, is simply a matter of their safety. By fighting unwanted political information, they [the authorities] are displaying a completely irresponsible attitude towards the citizens of their own country.”

Nikolai Rybakov’s address lasted almost 15 minutes. Sergei Golubev, Chair of the Tver Region Legislative Assembly, commented on it as follows:

“Colleagues, I think I shall express the general view if I say that the address was interesting and important. There are things we agree with, there are clearly things that are highly contentious, and there are things with which, perhaps, the majority of those present categorically disagree. Nevertheless, it is clear to all that it is an election year, with a single voting day ahead. Knowing the position — the honest position — of a different political force is important to us.”