Press Release, 26.08.2026

Photo: Emilia Slabunova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 26 August, the Third Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction dismissed the cassation appeal filed by the Karelian regional branch of Yabloko against the rulings of the two lower courts, which had refused to register the party’s candidate list for the Petrozavodsk City Council elections.

In its cassation appeal, Yabloko had argued that, in hearing the case, the courts had failed to take into account the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and had violated constitutional principles and procedural law. The Third Cassation Court found no grounds to review the previously adopted rulings.

Once it receives the court’s reasoned ruling, Karelian Yabloko intends to apply to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

“We will go through all the judicial instances. We will obtain the reasoned part of the Third Cassation Court’s ruling and send an appeal to the Supreme Court of Russia,” said Emilia Slabunova, Chair of Karelian Yabloko.

She stressed that the Electoral Commission of the Republic of Karelia had originally voted unanimously to register the party’s list.

“We are being told that the reason for the refusal was supposedly errors we made in preparing the documents. But then a simple question arises: how did the seasoned lawyers of the Karelia Electoral Commission unanimously vote to register the list containing these supposedly ‘defective’ documents?” Slabunova noted.

According to her, what is happening in Karelia needs to be viewed in the context of attempts to remove Yabloko’s lists from elections in other regions.

“The ‘parade’ of lawsuits against Yabloko’s lists of candidates in different regions of the country, with increasingly bizarre claims and now even drafted as if from the same template, is a cynical demonstration that the decisions to remove Yabloko from elections are openly political in nature,” Slabunova said.

“We will go through every instance. Future law students and political scientists will have plenty to study,” she added.