Press Release, 18.07.2026

Photo: Tatyana Pasman / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On Saturday, 18 July, a judge of the Pskov City Court found teacher and Yabloko candidate Tatyana Pasman guilty of “displaying Nazi symbols, or the symbols of extremist organisations” (Article 20.3 of the Administrative Offences Code) and fined her 1,000 roubles. Tatyana Pasman is a Holocaust researcher, a deputy of the Pskov City Council, and the party’s candidate for the State Duma and the Pskov Region Legislative Assembly in the forthcoming elections.

Saturday’s court hearing was held behind closed doors. According to Pskov Yabloko, the proceedings began at 11:00 and ended after 16:30, with the ruling announced at 19:00; journalists and observers were barred not only from the courtroom but even from the courthouse.

The grounds for the administrative prosecution was a non-existent post on a private page on the social network Facebook, which is blocked in Russia and belongs to Meta, an organisation recognised as extremist and banned in Russia.

The publication attributed to Tatyana Pasman is an illustration relating to the tragic events of 7 October 2023 in Israel.

“The police attempted to present the situation as though the post belonged to Tatyana Pasman. Yet the police report names a different person as the author, and the personal link recorded in the document leads to that person’s page, not to Tatyana Pasman’s,” Pskov Yabloko reports.

In a written legal submission, Tatyana Pasman explained to the court that the expert opinion in the case file was dated 30 June, while the questions to be examined in the course of the study were only formulated on 1 July — meaning the opinion had been falsified.

She also invoked the note to Article 20.3 of the Administrative Offences Code, which permits the use of Nazi symbols where they are used to express a negative attitude toward the ideology, provided there is no propaganda or justification of those ideas in the person’s actions.

Furthermore, under the Administrative Offences Code, a fine can only be imposed for a violation that occurred on the territory of the Russian Federation, and since Facebook has been blocked in Russia by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) since 2022, there was, she argued, no “public display” and therefore no offence to speak of.

The court ruling will be appealed.

Tatyana Pasman has spent many years researching the Holocaust and preserving the memory of its victims in the Pskov Region. She is a sitting deputy of the Pskov City Council from Yabloko, fourth on the party’s list and a candidate in Single-Mandate Constituency No. 1 for the Pskov Region Legislative Assembly, as well as a candidate included in the regional group covering the Pskov, Smolensk and Kaluga Regions as part of Yabloko’s unified list for the State Duma elections.

The fine imposed on Tatyana Pasman is the second against Yabloko candidates in the forthcoming elections. However, courts have already repeatedly barred party leaders and activists from standing for a year by imposing fines under the article on “displaying extremist symbols”.

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov stresses that the prosecution of Yabloko members under Article 20.3 amounts to nothing other than political pressure, which is likely only to intensify as polling day approaches:

“It is obvious that this is not a ‘fight against extremism’ but precisely the opposite — candidates who advocate a peaceful resolution of conflicts are being removed from the election. We understand that this is happening because dozens of millions of people across the country support Yabloko’s position in demanding peace, freedom and a life without fear. Because we are the only party in Russia fighting for this.”

It should be noted that in June Yabloko put forward hundreds of candidates for the State Duma, all standing under the slogan of the shortest election platform in the party’s history: “For Peace and Freedom! For a Life Without Fear!”

It should also be noted that on 8 July the Conference of Pskov Yabloko nominated 57 candidates for the Pskov Region Legislative Assembly — 44 candidates on the party’s unified list and 13 candidates across all single-mandate constituencies.