Press Release, 26.07.2026

Photo: Anna Cherepanova / Photo by Novgorod Yabloko

Today, 26 July, the Novgorod Region Electoral Commission unanimously registered Yabloko’s list of candidates for the elections to the Novgorod Regional Duma. The list comprises 19 candidates across all ten regional groups.

The list is headed by Anna Cherepanova, Deputy Chair of Yabloko, leader of Novgorod Yabloko, a sitting deputy and leader of the Yabloko faction in the Novgorod City Duma.

“The list has been registered with a notation indicating that it includes a candidate affiliated with a ‘foreign agent’. In Russia, this status is assigned by the Ministry of Justice to opposition politicians and critics of the current authorities, despite the fact that there is nothing foreign about them and they are not agents of anyone,” Novgorod Yabloko emphasised.

It should be noted that on 23 July, Yabloko Deputy Chair Anna Cherepanova was first charged with “displaying extremist symbols” and then registered as a candidate for the regional parliament elections in Central Constituency No. 11. The aim of the charges against a politician well known in the Novgorod Region and far beyond it is to bar Cherepanova from taking part in the elections. However, under the Law “On Elections”, a registered candidate for a regional parliament may only be prosecuted with the sanction of the regional prosecutor.

It should also be noted that:

– On 24 July, the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission refused (https://eng.yabloko.ru/38690-2/) to register Yabloko’s list of candidates for the elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. This decision will be appealed. If it is not overturned, voters in St. Petersburg will be unable to vote for a Yabloko faction to sit in the Legislative Assembly;

– On 25 July, it became known that the Rodina political party is seeking a court order to overturn (https://eng.yabloko.ru/38708-2/) the registration of Yabloko’s list for the Karelian parliament elections. The claim will be heard by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia.

It should be emphasised that, besides St. Petersburg, Karelia and the Novgorod Region, Yabloko has also nominated (https://eng.yabloko.ru/38395-2/) lists of candidates for the regional parliaments of the Sverdlovsk, Pskov, Kaliningrad, Leningrad and Moscow Regions, and has nominated candidates for single-mandate constituencies in the Altai Territory and the Lipetsk Region.