Press Release, 28.09.2022

Photo: Alexander Makhankov / Photo from social media

The District Court of the Pushkinsky District of St.Petersburg, fined Alexander Makhankov, leader of the Yabloko branch in the district and a Yabloko candidate for the recent municipal elections to the Pushkinsky Municipal Council, 30,000 roubles for “discrediting the army”. The protocol was drawn up because of his comments on the VKontakte social media.

The police focused their attention on Makhankov in April 2022. They were interested in his comments on social media mentioning the events in Ukraine.

Makhankov connects the administrative case against him with his election campaign and believes that  these accusations aimed at preventing him from participation in the elections.

“Politics means discussing not only the functioning of the state, but also the work of all its institutions, the meaning of their existence: the government as a whole, the healthcare system, education, law enforcement agencies, including the armed forces and the need to use them. The courts effectively forbid talking about politics and its consequences. This is the meaning of this court decision,” Alexander Makhankov said.

In court, the interests of Alexander Makhankov were represented by lawyer Alexander Kobrinsky. The defender noted that the terms for bringing to responsibility under this article had already expired. There had been no linguistic expertise in the case either.

It should be noted that earlier the campaign leaflets of Alexander Makhakov at the September municipal elections were sent for examination on suspicion of the presence of “extremism”. The leaflets contained Yabloko’s slogan “I and Yabloko Stand for Peace!”. The territorial electoral commission recommended  to stop the distribution of leaflets for the duration of the examination which took place on the threahold of the voting days.

In addition, State Duma deputy from United Russia Vitaly Milonov wrote an appeal to the Public  Prosecutor of St. Petersburg with a request to “pay attention” to the campaign materials of the candidate from Yabloko to the Municipal Council of the Pushkinsky District, Alexander Makhankov.

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