Press Release, 5.10.2022

Photo: Nikolai Kuzmin and Ekaterina Novikova

This morning, searches were carried out at the homes of Yabloko members Nikolai Kuzmin and Ekaterina Novikova. Their phones, laptops, hard drives and flash drives were confiscated.

Lev Shlosberg, Chairman of the Pskov branch of Yabloko and a member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, says that the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Ivanovo region, opened a criminal case on “discrediting the armed forces” (Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) against Mikhail Gusev, a civil activist from Ivanovo and an election observer, who was forced to leave the country, who is allegedly charged with leading some anonymous Telegram channel. The investigation somehow decided that “there may be … objects and documents that are relevant to the criminal case” in Pskov, in the houses of Nikolai Kuzmin, a deputy of the Zavelichenskaya volost from Yabloko, Ekaterina Novikova, a member of the Territorial Electoral  Commission of the city of Pskov from Yabloko, and journalist Denis Kamalyagin, who was also forced to leave Russia and has been working in Riga since March. None of the Pskov activists know Mikhail Gusev.

However, the court, which held a closed hearing on 29 September, agreed with the investigator, and this morning, during searches at Ekaterina and Nikolai’s homes, again, just like on 18 March, laptops and phones (including children’s phones!), flash drives, and disks were confiscated. Denis is not in Pskov.

Leb Shlosberg notes that judging by other searches within the framework of this criminal case in different regions, the authorities are inflicting another blow on Golos, the movement in defence of the voters’ rights, recognised a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities. However, Golos continues its work on election observation in different regions of the country. The elections are over, Golos did not stop the fight for fair elections, and again got under attack.

The team of the Pskov Yabloko is outraged by the arbitrary actions of the police. Our colleagues are provided with all the necessary legal assistance.

It should be noted, that this is not the first search of Yabloko members homes in Pskov and throughout the country.

On 18 March, the homes of Lev Shlosberg, Nikolai Kuzmin, Ekaterina Novikova, as well as the parents of Denis Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of Pskovskaya Guberniya, and journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, were searched as part of a criminal case of slandering the Governor of the Pskov region.

Two weeks earlier, a so-called “police inspection of the premises” took place in the office of the Pskov Yabloko, during which ten computers were confiscated. The reason for the “inspection” was the administrative proceedings under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation on “discrediting the army”, which came into force a few hours before the “inspection”.

On 24 June, an “examination of the premises” took place as part of an administrative case initiated under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 (“discrediting the army”) of the Code of Administrative Offenses in the administration of the Novorzhevsky district of the Pskov region headed by Yabloko’s Sofya Pugacheva. Later, Sofya Pugacheva, head of the Novorzhevsky district aand a member of Yabloko, was fined for “discrediting the army”.

Sentences guilty and fines on this so-called “censorship article” were passed on the chairman of the Pskov Yabloko Lev Shlosberg (twice) and his wife Zhanna Shlosberg-Kozlovich, Nikolai Kuzmin, a deputy of the Zavelichenskaya volost, Lyubov Zhiltsova, a deputy of the Palkinsky district Assembly, Ivan Prishchepa, a former candidate for the Pskov regional Assembly, and Ivan Kotkov, a member of the Pskov Yabloko (twice).

In total, 37 administrative protocols on “discrediting the army” were drawn up against at least 30 members of the Yabloko party and its supporters in different Russian regions.

Since the beginning of the so-called “special operation”, searches and “inspections of the premises” have been carried out among Yabloko members in other regions: at the home of Alexander Korovainy, ex-deputy of the Council of the Yeisk District (the Krasnodar Territory), Marina Zheleznyakova, Chair of the Maritime branch of Yabloko, in the office of the Bashkirian branch of Yabloko, party supporter in Rostov-on-Don Tatyana Sporysheva and activist Boris Miklyukov, Yabloko member in Voronezh Pavel Sychev, Ruslan Zinatullin, Chairman of the Yabloko branch in Tatarstan, Kazan activists Yelena Izotova and Gulnaz Ravilova, and Yabloko member in Arkhangelsk Daria Poryadina. Searches were also carried out as part of the initiated criminal cases at the homes of Vladimir Efimov, head of the Kamchatka Yabloko, Mikhail Afanasyev, a Yabloko member in Khakassia, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Chairman of the Yabloko branch in Yakutia, and Alexander Grigoriev, a member of the Lipetsk regional department of Yabloko.

Read more about the persecution of Yabloko members after the start of the “special operation”: https://www.yabloko.ru/war-against-yabloko