Press Release, 29.04.2026

Photo: Maxim Petlin (left) and Yegor Tkachenko (right)/ Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

UPD as of 29 April, 21:05. All Yabloko members detained in Yekaterinburg have been released. No charges have been brought against them.

Today, 29 April, searches were carried out at the homes of Maxim Petlin, Chairman of the Yabloko branch in the Sverdlovsk Region, and party member Yegor Tkachenko. Regional elections to the Legislative Assembly and the State Duma are scheduled to take place in Sverdlovsk Region this autumn. The pressure being exerted on Yabloko activists is an attempt to prevent candidates from standing in the elections.

The lawyer representing the detained Yabloko members in Yekaterinburg has been unable to reach them for several hours. All indications are that both Maxim Petlin and Yegor Tkachenko are being held at Police Station No. 1 of the Yekaterinburg Department of Internal Affairs.

It has also emerged that one more activist, party supporter Yelizaveta Kabak, has been detained.

“Everything that is happening today in Yekaterinburg is part of a campaign of pressure against Yabloko and our activists,” Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov stressed. “We receive such news every day. But we understand that a new pretext can always be invented, while the reason remains the same: more and more people across the country are supporting Yabloko and our position ‘For Peace and Freedom’.”

In the view of Yabloko Political Committee member Ivan Bolshakov, the evident aim of these persecutions is to stoke fear, hopelessness and indifference in society on the eve of September elections to the State Duma.

It should be noted that this September, in addition to the parliamentary elections, the Sverdlovsk Region will also hold elections to its Legislative Assembly. The pressure on Yabloko activists is an attempt to prevent party candidates from standing.

Updated: Sverdlovsk Yabloko Chairman Maxim Petlin, party member Yegor Tkachenko, and activist Yelizaveta Kabak, who had been detained earlier, have been released from the police station in Yekaterinburg.

The so-called “operational and investigative measures”, which today included searches and the detention of Yabloko members, were connected to last year’s searches (https://eng.yabloko.ru/masked-men-raided-the-yekaterinburg-yabloko-office-because-of-a-denunciation/ ) at the Yekaterinburg Yabloko office. It should be noted that on 25 May 2025, an action of writing letters to political prisoners was taking place at the party office in Yekaterinburg when security forces arrived and detained participants and leaders of the regional branch of the party.

Maxim Petlin reported that today his own equipment and communications devices, as well as those of his family members and Yegor Tkachenko, had been seized. Following the operational and investigative measures conducted on police station premises, all those detained were released without any records being drawn up. No charges were brought against anyone.