Press Release, 6.05.2022

On 17 May, Nina Ostanina, a communist MP of the State Duma, plans to ask the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin at a special meeting of the State Duma dedicated to Moscow deputies who disagreed with the special operation, to deprive them of their deputies’ mandates. According to Ostanina, Sergei Mitorkhin, Yabloko MP of the Moscow City Duma and ex-Chairman of the Yabloko party, should be deprived of his mandate for his sharp public criticism of the special military operation. Ostania also plans to deprive two Moscow municipal deputies – Viktor Kotov and Yevgenia Remizova – of their mandates as they left Russia after the start of the special operation. Ostanina said that a decision would have to be made “on the dismissing these characters from their posts”.

It should be noted that on 13 April, Sergei Mitrokhin, former Chairman of the Yabloko party and an MP of the Moscow City Duma, sharply condemned Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine in response to the demand of the deputy from the Communist Party Alexander Maksimov “to end with Yabloko as a party of ‘national traitors’”. According to Mitrokhin, “All those who support what is happening today as a result of the so-called “special military operation” will bitterly regret it soon, as this so-called “special military operation” will take away hundreds or maybe thousands times more lives than the victims that emerged there for the eight years [of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine], whereas there were victims from both the sides, this fact has been concealed for some reason, [including] that there was a covert support of separatists in the East of Ukraine. But today it is obvious, that they, for the sake of their alleged revenge for these victims, are going to sacrifice much more people, spill the blood of not only Ukrainian citizens, residents of Ukraine and raze Ukrainian cities to the ground, but also kill, we do not know the exact number now, Russian people.”

Mitrokhin’s speech was widely quoted on social networks. Denunciations demanding from the law enforcement to punish Mitrokhin for this speech were written by MP of the Moscow City Duma from the Communist Party Alexander Maksimov, MPs of the State Duma Nina Ostanina (the Communist Party) and Viktor Dzyuba (United Russia), and Ataman of the Western District Cossack Society Alexei Alkhovik. Communist Nina Ostanina, who demands that Mitrokhin be deprived of his deputy mandate, was his rival in the State Duma elections in the Central District of Moscow in 2021, and lost to him by a wide margin. However, she became a deputy of the State Duma on the list of the Communist Party. Mitrokhin, who won the State Duma election according to the manual vote count, lost to his competitor from the authorities due to a specially organised remote electronic voting.

In mid-March, members of the Russian State Duma condemned domestic celebrities and businessmen who left the country after the start of a special operation in Ukraine, they can be recognised “undesirable” persons and forbidden to return home.

Read more about the persecution of Yabloko members after the start of the “special operation”.

Based on MK publications