Press Release, 21.05.2026

Photo: Kirill Derevsky (centre) during the 2025 election campaign in Voronezh

Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov has sent a formal letter to acting Voronezh Region Public Prosecutor Dmitry Neverov. The letter was prompted by information received by the party from Kirill Derevsky, a 20-year-old Yabloko supporter and the party’s candidate for the Voronezh City Duma in 2025. He alleges that he was subjected to torture and intimidation by security officers at a meeting of the Prostranstvo Politika discussion platform, which had been devoted to questions of the urban environment and urbanism.

According to media reports and posts on his personal social media pages, in Voronezh, on 17 May, approximately 30 to 40 minutes after the meeting began, officers from the Russian National Guard and the Centre for Countering Extremism arrived at the venue. During the detention, officers struck Derevsky with an electric shock device, pulled his hair, and threatened to shave his head. He was also unlawfully coerced under threat into unlocking his personal mobile phone.

Derevsky further states that officers attempted to extract information from him about who would be standing for Yabloko in the forthcoming September elections to the State Duma.

Rybakov’s letter runs that such actions are contrary to the guarantees of the Russian Constitution, including the right of association, the right to vote and stand for election, and the right to privacy and confidentiality of communications.

Furthermore, the Federal Law on Police explicitly prohibits police officers from resorting to torture, violence, or other cruel or degrading treatment.

“I believe that the actions of the security service officers described above contain all the hallmarks of abuse of official authority and constitute an attempt to exert pressure on a citizen on account of his political views and participation in political activity,” Rybakov emphasized.

The party leader also noted that the situation required a separate investigation into the lawfulness of the detention of those present at the event, the seizure of their mobile phones, and their being held at the police station for several hours without any record being drawn up.

Rybakov called for a prosecutorial inquiry into the circumstances of the incident, for the identification of the officers concerned, and for the public prosecutor’s office to issue a legal assessment of their actions.