Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Alexander Gnezdilov comments for the influential Japanese newspaper Putin’s record drop in popularity
Press Release, 18.05.2020
Alexander Gnezdilov, member of the Yabloko Party’s Federal Political Committee, gave a commentary for the influential Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun for an article where the newspaper’s special correspondent investigated the causes of a serious drop in President Vladimir Putin’s rating and a noticeable increase in opposition moods among young Russians.
On 18 May, Andrei Avtoneyev, Chairman of the Ivanovo regional branch of the Yabloko party, and employees of the emergency medical station, filed a complaint with the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Ivanovo Region.
Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, turned to St.Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov with a proposal to take urgent measures to remedy the situation in St. Petersburg when citizens who have been diagnosed with a coronavirus infection should wait for the ambulance for 10-11 hours after the call.
On May 15, the International Day of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service, Ruslan Zinatullin, Chairman of the regional branch of the Yabloko party in Tatarstan, held a series of one-person pickets (that do not require any permissions from the authorities) against the conscription slavery in Russia and against human rights violations in the Russian army. The picketing was held by the military commissariat in the Volga and Vakhitovsky districts of Kazan.
Open letter of the Kaliningrad branch of Yabloko, 13.05.2020
On May 11-13, 2020, a number of media published news under provocative headlines and texts about the annual action in memory of the victims of the Second World War conducted by our colleague Sergei Dustin. These publications, together with the video, became the reason for the preliminary investigation of Dustin’s actions by the Investigative Committee under Article 354.1 “Rehabilitation of Nazism”.
Meanwhile, the essence of Sergei’s memorial action is that on May 9 he laid flowers first to the mass burial of Soviet soldiers who died in April 1945, and then to the international memorial burial of victims of the Second World War in Baltiysk. The video published in social networks and the above media clearly show his speech that the Second World War brought suffering to all peoples, not only Europe, but the whole world. The Soviet Union suffered terrible, impossible losses. For the German people, this tragedy is no less terrible than for other countries, including the USSR… All these people are victims of the criminal policy of unleashing wars… and the people (war criminals) who are to blame for unleashing the Second World War are worthy of no memory…
On Tuesday, 19 May, the Social Democratic Faction of the Yabloko Party, Yabloko’s Gender Faction, and the Committee for Combating Xenophobia will hold an online conference “The situation with Migrants in Russia during the Pandemic”. The conference will begin at 16.00 MSK.
On 13 May, the State Duma adopted in the second and third reading the bills toughening election legislation and providing additional opportunities for distortion of election results.
In particular, the new norms complicate registration of candidates through collection of signatures, contribute to the expansion of the practices of voting outside the designated premises, as well as apply postal and remote electronic voting. In addition, changes in legislation directly affect the right to participate in elections for new categories of citizens.
On 13 May, the Russian government introduced to the State Duma a package of amendments to the Law “On Police”, unreasonably expanding the powers of the police and threatening the rights of citizens. The Yabloko party considers the adoption of this bill unacceptable.
In particular, it is proposed to introduce a rule exempting a police officer from liability “for actions committed in the performance of duties assigned to the police and in connection with the exercise of the rights granted to the police”. The amendments grant police officers the right to open fire on citizens not during an attack, but in the case of actions regarded as a “threat of attack”. It is proposed to exempt the police from the obligation to introduce themselves and explain the claims and the reasons for the detention, “when it is necessary to immediately stop the crime”. Police are given the right to open cars, virtually, without any reason, as well as the right to cordon off or block territories, houses and buildings, and search citizens and their cars inside the cordon.
Today two resonant bills were submitted to the State Duma: on voting by mail and on the right of policemen to open cars. So, under the auspices of the fight against the epidemic, the authorities take the most vile steps – legitimisation of police lawlessness and creation of the basis for election fraud. And the law on voting by mail has already been adopted immediately in the second and third readings.
The Ivanovo regional branch of the Yabloko party appealed to the Governor and deputies of the Ivanovo Regional Duma with a demand to amend the regional budget. Namely, to redistribute more than 21 million roubles allocated to mass events and festivals, in favour of doctors and medical workers, population and the affected business.
The Ryazan branch of the Yabloko asked Yelena Sorokina, head of the Ryazan administration, to publicly explain how the money allocated before the COVID-19 epidemic for recreation of children during summer holidays would be spent, as children’s summer activities were banned due to the pandemic. A separate issue was what happened to the already held auctions that had determined the contractors.
The Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko sent an appeal to the Deputy Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Rector of the Medical University on the inadmissibility to forcibly involve medical students to work with patients with coronavirus.
Yabloko releases a documentary “Boris Misnik. A man from Monchegorsk”. It is dedicated to one of the leaders of our party – Boris Grigoryevich Misnik.
In the 1990s, Boris Misnik headed the Russian Mining and Metallurgical Union and was a State Duma deputy from the Yabloko party. The childhood years of Boris Misnik fell on the Second World War period. He and his family were evacuated to Sakhalin. Most of his life has been connected with the North, where he was born and worked for many years.
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the walls of the Moscow Kremlin in the Alexander Garden in memory of those who defended the country in the Second World War.
The Governor must consider provision of benefits to pensioners, especially for those whose pension is less than the subsistence minimum established in the Omsk region. Such a proposal was sent by the Omsk regional branch of the Yabloko party to Alexander Burkov, Governor of the region.
According to the Mail.ru Internet portal, the web-site of the Altai Regional Branch of the Yabloko party topped the most popular political web-sites in the Siberian Federal District in April. It ranked 21st (20th in March) out of 940 information resources in the Russian Federation. The web-site of the Novosibirsk regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation ranked 22nd, whereas the popularity of this web-site was largely due to the fact that the Mayor of Novosibirsk is Anatoly Lokot, member of the Communist Party.
The Saratov branch of the Yabloko party sent an appeal to the Governor and the government of the Saratov region, as well as to deputies of the regional Duma with a call to redistribute the funds envisaged in the regional budget for 2020 in connection with the spread of the COVID-19 infection.
“We believe that taxpayers’ money should be used to finance hospitals, salaries of doctors and medical personnel, purchase of necessary medical equipment and medicines, as well as free personal protective equipment for the entire population of the region, but certainly not for campaigning for [Vladimir Putin’s] amendments to the Constitution and construction of a new park,” said Ksenia Sverdlova, Chair of the regional branch of the party.
On Tuesday, May 5, the Gender School and the Party University of the Yabloko party will hold a special online presentation of the Runet Award “Sexist of the Year”, established by the For Feminism initiative group. The event will take place at 18:00, MSK.
The Chelyabinsk regional branch of the Yabloko party will hold the First of May demonstration online. Everyone can join the stream which starts this Friday at 12:00. The organiser of the online demonstration is Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the party’s regional branch.
Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of the party’s faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, sent an appeal to Oleg Ergashev, Vice Governor of St.Petersburg. Vishnevsky asked Ergashev to take measures to prompt and daily publication of clear and precise statistics on hospitals treating patients with coronavirus, the number of patients and those who have recovered.
