Press Release, 14.08.2026

Photo: Lev Shlosberg / Photo by Pskov Yabloko

Today, 14 August, the prosecution has asked Pskov City Court to sentence Yabloko Deputy Chairman Lev Shlosberg to 12 years and 1 month’s imprisonment.

It should be noted that, in the consolidated criminal case against Lev Shlosberg, he is charged under two articles of the Criminal Code: Article 280.3(1) (repeated “discrediting the army”), over a debate with historian Yuri Pivovarov in which Shlosberg argued for the need for an urgent ceasefire, and Article 207.3(2) (“fakes about the army”), over reposting a publication on a Telegram channel in February 2022.

From 13 to 31 July, the Pskov City Court held hearings daily. At one of them, Lev Shlosberg filed a motion to recuse the judge and the prosecution; after this motion was rejected, the prosecution moved on to examining evidence (among it, wiretap recordings). The court questioned three prosecution witnesses — participants in the nationalistic Russian Marches and members of the so-called Pskov Territorial Defence — followed by a fourth witness, an informer, after which the prosecution concluded its presentation of evidence.

At the hearings on 21 and 22 July, the court rejected all motions filed by Lev Shlosberg’s defence, after which a linguistics expert witness “demolished” the prosecution’s expert assessment. At the hearings on 23 and 24 July, Lev Shlosberg’s defence filed a motion to exclude inadmissible prosecution evidence and continued to present evidence of the politician’s innocence; the court then examined Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov as a defence witness. Also on 24 July, historian Konstantin Obozny testified in Shlosberg’s defence, and on 27 July, journalist and media manager Alexei Venediktov did likewise. On 28 July, Shlosberg’s lawyers again sought the recusal of the judge, and on 29 July, journalist Arina Borodina testified in the politician’s defence. On 31 July, Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee, testified in court.

Also testifying in Lev Shlosberg’s defence between 29 and 31 July were: Sergei Mitrokhin, member of Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee, psychiatrist Yevgeny Kreslavsky, priest Sergei Televinov, and political scientist Dmitry Goncharov.

At the hearing on 11 August, Lev Shlosberg’s defence demanded the exclusion from the case file of inadmissible evidence relating to a motive of “political hatred”. However, the judge rejected this motion, as well as a motion to summon Artyom Ivanov, an officer of Centre E (the Centre for Combatting Extremism), for questioning. He might have clarified how a colour copy of the cover of the Daily Mirror newspaper came to be in the case file — a copy that had been sent for linguistic and political-science analysis, the results of which the prosecution is using as evidence of a motive of political hatred on Lev Shlosberg’s part.

From 11 June 2025, Shlosberg was under house arrest. Since 5 December 2025, he has been held in Pskov’s Pre-Trial Detention Facility No 1.

On 5 November 2025, Shlosberg was convicted in a criminal case over failure to comply with the duties of a “foreign agent” (Article 330.1(2) of the Criminal Code), for saving five other people’s videos on his personal VKontakte page. The court sentenced the politician to 420 hours of compulsory labour.