Press Release, 9.09.2026

Photo: Sergei Kryzhov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Today, 9 September, the Moscow Region Court revoked the registration of Sergei Kryzhov, leader of Moscow Region Yabloko, as the party’s candidate in the State Duma elections for the Sergiyev Posad single-mandate constituency in the Moscow Region.

The claim was filed by Anatoly Balashov, a candidate from the Greens party. The claim stated that logos of social networks, including VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, had been posted on Kryzhov’s personal website as far back as 2021, and that this infringed the exclusive rights to those logos, in the claimant’s view.

Sergei Kryzhov applied for his representative — an expert in civil law, including trademark disputes — to be admitted to take part in the hearing. The court refused the application.

Kryzhov then left the hearing, without waiting for the claim to be considered or a ruling to be issued.

“I believe the court had no right to deny me the ability to bring in my legal representative, which is why I left the hearing,” Sergei Kryzhov said.

The decision to revoke his registration was taken in the candidate’s absence. It has not entered into legal force and will be appealed.

Also today, the Moscow Region Court was due to hear a claim brought by Pavel Khob, a member of the Party of Pensioners, against Yabloko candidate Maya Zavyalova.

The hearing had been scheduled for 12:00. Maya Zavyalova and her defence team had submitted written objections to the court but did not attend the hearing. At the time of publication, neither the candidate nor her representatives had received any information on the outcome of the case, and no details had appeared on the court’s website either.

In addition, the Supreme Court of Russia today upheld the revocation of the registration of Yabloko candidate Viktor Bystrov for the Kolomna single-mandate constituency. He had previously been removed from the elections following a claim by the Greens party.

The day before, on 8 September, the Moscow Region Court had revoked the registration of two other Yabloko State Duma candidates from the Moscow Region, Yuri Vaskin and Alexander Muravyev.

In total, by 9 September, courts had revoked the registration of nine Yabloko single-mandate candidates in the State Duma elections.

Besides Sergei Kryzhov, Viktor Bystrov, Yuri Vaskin and Alexander Muravyev, the candidates removed from the elections were Yaroslav Shcherbakov in the Chelyabinsk Region, Dmitry Smirnov in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Alexei Akimenko in Bashkortostan, Ayrat Gumerbaev in Tatarstan, and Anton Paramonov in the Tula Region.

The court rulings have not entered into legal force and will be appealed.