Press Release, 16.08.2026

Photo: Anatoly Golov, Olga Pokrovskaya and Grigory Grishin before submitting documents to the electoral commission / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The Leningrad Region Electoral Commission has refused to register Yabloko’s list of candidates for the region’s Legislative Assembly. The reason given was an allegedly incorrect procedure for nominating the list – one which had raised no questions for the electoral commission at the certification stage. The decision will be appealed shortly.

It should be noted that 20 people are seeking seats in the Leningrad Region Legislative Assembly; they were nominated at the Yabloko party’s Congress on 27 June. Yabloko’s list of candidates here was headed by Grigory Grishin (45, Candidate of Philological Sciences, teacher of Russian language and literature, documentary filmmaker, and party member).

In July, the candidates’ documents were submitted to the electoral commission, which certified the list without objection. However, in August, on the eve of registration, Yabloko’s candidates were informed of deficiencies in the documents. These were technical in nature and were corrected within a few days.

Nevertheless, on 13 August, the day the electoral commission met to decide on registration, Yabloko’s list was refused. The reason cited by the regional electoral commission had not been raised before: in the commission’s view, the list of candidates had been nominated with violations from the outset – specifically, the ballot for nominating candidates had been drawn up incorrectly.

Members of the electoral commission were unable to explain why, in that case, the list had been certified in the first place.

Yabloko will appeal against the refusal to register shortly. The refusal is purely political in nature and is linked to an attempt to deprive voters of the opportunity to vote for the party’s core slogan: “For Peace and Freedom! For a Life Without Fear!”

In 2026, Yabloko is contesting elections to several regional parliaments; the party’s lists have already been registered in the Pskov, Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Kaliningrad and Tomsk regions. In Karelia, the registered list was subsequently removed from the election following a lawsuit brought by the Rodina party; Yabloko is appealing this decision in court. However, 12 candidates in single-mandate constituencies there remain in the race. In St. Petersburg, the electoral commission refused to register the list of candidates, and the party is likewise appealing this decision in court; at the same time, 11 Yabloko candidates nominated in single-mandate constituencies there remain in the running.

In the Leningrad Region, three Yabloko candidates were registered last week for the State Duma in single-mandate constituencies. These are constituencies No. 112, No. 113 and No. 114, where the candidates standing are, respectively, Ilya Kiselev, engineer and environmentalist, Viktoria Razina, assistant to St. Petersburg Yabloko deputy Olga Shtannikova, and lawyer Anton Kostik.