Statement by St. Petersburg Yabloko, 22.09.2026

Photo: A sign reading “Yabloko. St. Petersburg” / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The St. Petersburg Electoral Commission has approved the results of the elections in St. Petersburg, under which not a single Yabloko representative has won a seat in the city parliament.

During the campaign, everyone saw how much support our proposals — peace, freedom, a life without fear and repression — enjoyed, and what a response they evoked in society, especially among young people.

That is why the system resorted to unprecedented measures to deprive those residents of the city who stand for peace and freedom of political representation in the Legislative Assembly, and to ensure that the only voices heard from the parliamentary rostrum were those of loyal and obedient members who never object to the executive authorities on anything.

To this end, Yabloko’s party list was refused registration on absurd and unlawful grounds. Hundreds of thousands of St. Petersburg residents who had voted for us in all previous years were deprived of the opportunity to choose those who would represent them in the city parliament, defend their interests and speak on their behalf.

Nevertheless, 13 of our candidates continued to run in single-mandate constituencies. They were obstructed in every possible way: broadcasters refused to air the campaign videos to which they were entitled, and their pickets were not approved. Yet the candidates campaigned courageously, and more than half of St. Petersburg’s voters still had the opportunity to vote for peace and freedom.

During the voting days, everything was done to prevent independent observation that would have stood in the way of falsification. We have seen violations in St. Petersburg many times, but this time they surpassed all previous ones. To ensure that nothing hindered falsification, Yabloko was denied the right to have observers present, those who managed to get into polling stations were expelled with the help of the police and the courts, and our voting members of precinct electoral commissions were removed from their duties by court order. Under these conditions, the announced “election results” have little in common with the real will of the people of St. Petersburg.

But we will not stop working, and we will not stop defending our city, its monuments, public gardens and parks. We will not stop defending the rights of St. Petersburg residents against arbitrariness and lawlessness. Things will be harder for us — for the first time in 15 years, we will not have a faction in the city parliament — but we will not give up. We know how to work in these conditions too.

We thank everyone who voted for our candidates, everyone who helped them during the campaign, and everyone who spread our programme and slogans.

Our special thanks go to those members of electoral commissions and observers who, under enormous pressure, defended fair elections.

We will go on working to defend the values that unite us, together with many thousands of new and young supporters.