Press Release, 8.02.2021

Yabloko Chairman told to the Russian Perviy Kanal (Channel One) and NTV television channels, as well as in recent interviews to the Portuguese radio TSF and the Kurdish channel RUDAW, that the main reason for the demonstrations in Moscow and other Russian cities was not the Alexei Navalny case, but the political situation in the country.

“People took to the streets because they were tired of… they are tired of your irreplaceable [head of the LDPR parliamentary party] Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has been sitting in the State Duma with Gennady Zyuganov [leader of the Communist party] for 20 years… Putin has been in power for 20 years, so people have taken to the streets,” Rybakov said on the air of the Mesto Vstrechi (Meeting Place) programme on the NTV channel.

“Young people at rallies are not “kids”, they are the future of our country! Do you think they do not feel lawlessness, or that the President has not changed for 20 years?” the Yabloko leader told to the host of the Vremya Pokazhet programme on Channel One.

“We do not have free elections, we do not have freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” Rybakov said in an interview to the Portuguese radio station TSF.

In a conversation with a RUDAW correspondent, Rybakov stressed that elections are the only way to change politics in the country, because the Russian government has learned to fight protests, but has not yet learned to lose in elections.