Vladimir Putin met with the Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, Head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma, and several other members of the Yabloko faction in the Kremlin.

On December 25, 2000 a meeting was held between the President of the RF Vladimir Putin and the Chairman of the Yabloko Association and the head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma, Grigory Yavlinsky.

Yabloko and the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) will jointly participate in the elections to the Moscow City Duma in December 2001.

IT HAS become conventional wisdom to write off the State Duma as ineffectual at best and obstructionist at worst. After all, the lower house of parliament is weak vis-a-vis the Kremlin, dominated by Communists and its sessions often resemble a theater of the absurd.

Commenting on the article, "Russian Banks: Desperately Seeking Solvency," are two prominent Russian politicians, Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov, who present their views on the current status of the Russian economy and prospects for the future.

According to information from the NTV television company, with a reference to the Interfax agency, the President met with representatives of the Yabloko faction of the State Duma tonight.

Yabloko sends its congratulations to Anatoli Migulov, member of the Yabloko Association, deputy of the City Duma, on his election (on December 24, 2000) to the post of the head of the Arzamas city (Nizhni Novgorod region). He was elected head of Arzamas in the first round of the elections, gaining 57% of the vote.

The Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) and Yabloko are working on the formation of a single list of candidates for the next parliamentary elections. However, the two movements have not discussed the possibility of a merger.

“Both we and the Union of Right-Wing Forces will do our utmost in the near future to take the first steps in the creation of a single democratic front in Russia,”, said Yavlinsky at a press conference in Yaroslavl on December 23, 2000.

The Bureau of the Central Council of Yabloko circulated a declaration on December 19, 2000, which assesses the actions of the authorities against the NTV television company as "the “implementation of another political order”.

Therefore I would like to request an additional three minutes and twenty seconds for my report about my country, which is so big. I will speak in English, as I would like to reach my European partners here. I want to reach them even more than Russia’s own Minister of Foreign Affairs.

MOSCOW - The Central Elections Commission is pushing for a new law on political parties that would slash the number of existing political groups by over 90 percent, leaving only a dozen or so major players and barring the rest from participating in parliamentary elections.

Outraged over the decision to bring back the Soviet national anthem, the Union of Right-Wing Forces Duma faction has raised the issue of burying Lenin's body. An appeal to President Vladimir Putin to create a memorial centre on Red Square in Moscow was proposed at the Duma Council yesterday.

The Bureau of the Central Council of the Yabloko Association considers the actions of the authorities in respect on the NTV channel and other mass media within the Media-Most holding to be implementation of another political order. These actions are targeted at final liquidation of the mass media that are independent of the state...

The Yabloko Association is satisfied with the results of gubernatorial elections in Mariy El Republic held on December 17. At the elections the Deputy Director General of the OAO “Rosgosstrakh” Leonid Markelov beat the present head of the Republic Vyacheslav Kislitsyn.

The First Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction Sergei Ivanenko declared that politicisation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office is inadmissible.

The leader of Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky considers it necessary to convene the Democratic Assembly of Russia, involving all the democratic forces of Russia.

The First Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction Sergei Ivanenko thinks that the question of burying Lenin's body should be solved in accordance with Christian tradition, but that today is an inopportune moment to do so.

Sergei Popov, Deputy of the Yabloko faction plans to introduce a proposal on a national referendum of the draft Labour Code after its adoption at first reading by the lower chamber. He declared this intention on December 13, 2000.

On December 13, the leaders of Yabloko and the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) in the State Duma forwarded a request to President of Russia Vladimir Putin to interfere in the situation connected with the criminal prosecution of the head of the Media-Most holding Vladimir concerning Gusinsky.

Criminal proceedings where Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma Igor Artemyev was a witness, have been halted in St. Petersburg due to the absence of a corpus delicti.

The Secretary of the Yabloko Association for Election Campaigns and Interaction with the Heads of Russia’s Regions, Igor Artemyev, said that Yabloko is satisfied with the results of regional elections that took place on December 10, 2000.

The Yabloko faction thinks that: "the leadership of Russia is turning the country back to the past, regression and consequently a historic defeat" , said Grigory Yavlinsky in an interview with journalists after the adoption by the State Duma (in an open vote) of the law on the Russian National Anthem

Five years ago one of the leading European politicians asked me about the global goal of the Yabloko party. I replied that our goal is to make Russia a European country in 20-25 years. On hearing my reply, he said, lowering his voice: "Never say this to anyone again - the bureaucrats in Brussels would die from horror, if they heard that Russia plans to become part of the EU." This was when I realised that something was wrong with the integration of Europe.

The Yabloko faction categorically opposes the adoption of the Stalin-Aleksandrov’s hymn and will vote against it.

First of all we think that the issue of legislative approval of state symbols is inopportune. Alexandr Solzhenizyn wrote about this topic in “Obschaya Gazeta” best of all: “ I think it is absolutely shameless to raise such a fuss about state symbols when the country lies in misery and millions of Russians die annually. The people aren’t raising the fuss about the hymn : it is being raised by the people crowding around power.”

The State Duma on Friday overwhelmingly approved President Vladimir Putin's request to reinstate the tune of the Stalin-era anthem and a tsarist flag and eagle as the country's state symbols.

Russia's parliament opened debate Friday on President Vladimir Putin's proposal to give the country a mixed bag of state symbols ranging from the tsarist eagle to the Stalin-era Soviet anthem.

The whole of the Yabloko faction will vote against the law to approve the music of the USSR hymn as the hymn of Russia.

The deputies of the faction think that the issue of legislative approval

of state symbols is inopportune. It would only be timely, after resolving the most acute economic and political problems of the country. The extremely

low living standards of most Russian citizens, the energy crisis in Maritime

Territory and the ongoing war in Chechnya demonstrate that today we are far from this.

The leader of the Yabloko association Grigory Yavlinsky discussed with RF President Vladimir Putin Yabloko’s proposals on the transfer to a voluntary contract-based principle of formation of the army during the meeting in Kremlin on December 5, 2000.

The Yabloko faction in the State Duma will vote against the adoption of the music of the USSR hymn as the new hymn of Russia. This declaration was made by Grigory Yavlinsky at the meeting of the President of the RF with the heads of the Duma factions and members of the State Council held in the Kremlin on December 4, 2000.

The present Mayor of Perm, Yuri Trutnev, supported by Yabloko won in the first round of gubernatorial elections in Perm region (December 3, 2000) obtained 51.48% of the votes.

The Yabloko faction thinks that the submission of the draft law “On the General Principles of Organisation of Legislative (Representative) and Executive State Authorities in Russian Federation Subjects” by the Presidential Administration to the State Duma represents an attempt to “sound out” the attitude of the deputies to the prospects of allowing the President of the RF to stand for a third term.

Moscow - The old Soviet hymn is unacceptable for today's Russia, a prominent reformist leader and lawmaker has warned, deepening the public controversy over Russia's future anthem.

"Russia is a very different state now, based on different principles and traditions, and it's wrong to repeat another regime's anthem, it will rip the society apart," Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the liberal party Yabloko, said in a radio interview Saturday.

Deputy of the State Duma of the RF Igor Artemyev (Yabloko) is convinced that the subpoena for Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg is related to the struggle for power in the present Russian government. Artemyev made this declaration on November 29 at a press conference in St. Petersburg.

Respected Vladimir Vladimirovich,

The Bureau of the Central Council of the Yabloko Association notes that the Government of the Russian Federation has expeditiously reacted to the proposal of the Yabloko faction of November 22, 2000 on budget loans to resolve the energy crisis in Maritime Territory

To the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation M.M. Kasyanov.

On Urgent Measures to Overcome the Energy Crisis in Maritime Territory

Today it is obvious to everybody that the situation in Maritime Territory is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster. Virtually all the main life support systems of the Territory are in a critical condition.

On November 28, 2000, the Bureau of the Central Council of the Yabloko Association proposed that the President of the RF and the Chairman of the Government introduce federal controls over preparations for the heating season.