Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
The home of Pavel Sychyov, Yabloko candidate for the State Duma and a video blogger, was searched in Voronezh about 6 a.m. The search was carried out within the framework of a criminal case on terrorism – false reports about the mining of a courthouse in Voronezh. The procedural status of Pavel Sychyov in the criminal case is a witness. However, all equipment was confiscated from the activist in spite of the fact that Sychyov had not been not involved in the criminal case.
Photo: Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery, Moscow / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 9 May, the leaders and members of the Yabloko party honoured the memory of those who died in the Second World War at the Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery in Moscow. The delegation laid flowers and a wreath at the Military Memorial. This is a traditional annual Yabloko anti-war action in memory of the victims of the Second World War.
Fierce critic of Putin and a former political opponent, Grigory Yavlinsky talks to Index about fear, lies and violence in today’s Russia
Index on Censorship, 05 May 2022,
BY JP O’MALLEY
Russian politician, academic and economist Grigory Yavlinsky, who became known with his plan for a smooth transition from the Soviet regime to a free-market economy. Credit: Пресс-служба Президента Российской Федерации/Wikimedia Commons
Russian liberal politician, economist and professor Grigory Yavlinsky has long been a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin. As the founder of the Russian United Democratic Party (Yabloko), which was the leading opposition party in post-Soviet Russia, Yavlinsky has campaigned against Putin on several occasions. In 2000 Yavlinsky participated in the Russian presidential elections under the slogan “For Russia without Dictators and Oligarchs.” In 2018, he ran in the presidential elections on an anti-corruption platform.
I first spoke to Yavlinsky in February 2012. In an interview for New Eastern Europe Yavlinsky told me he was preparing, once again, to offer Russian voters an alternative to Putin’s dictatorial reign in the Kremlin. Back then, Yavlinsky remained hopeful. “A non-democratic and corrupt system which has been created by Putin and Yeltsin, requires cardinal changes, and absolutely different politics in Russia today and important events will take place to see this happens in 2012,” Yavlinsky explained. “To change this system we need a political, economic, and moral alternative which would be supported by the people,” he added.
Today, these hopes have vanished. Why, then, do the Russian people still overwhelmingly support Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine? I caught up with Yavlinsky and this was the main subject I broached.
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.”
Photo: Ksenia Sverdlova /Photo from social networks
A protocol on “discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation” (Article 20.3.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) was drawn up against Ksenia Sverdlova, ex-Chair of the Saratov regional branch of the Yabloko party.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky and Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Alexander Shishlov and Boris Vishnevsky, MPs of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, submitted to the St. Petersburg parliament a draft statement on the protection of citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom of information.
Yabloko proposes that the Legislative Assembly should express protest against the restriction of freedom of information and demand immediate abolition of the legislative restrictions for citizens adopted after the start of the “special military operation” to disseminate any information about the events, except for official information, and freely express their opinion under the threat of administrative or criminal punishment.
The local branch of Yabloko in Miass, the Chelyabinsk region, held a May Day march under the slogan “For Peace!”.
Members and supporters of the Miass branch of Yabloko, together with activists of other socio-political organisations who joined Yabloko, marched through the centre of the city with a pacifist slogan written on the poster and held by Valentina Komkova, Chair the local Yabloko branch.
Photo: Nikolai Kuzmin / Photo from social networks
The Pskov City Court fined Nikolai Kuzmin, a municipal deputy from Yabloko, 30,000 roubles under an article about “discrediting the actions of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”
Photo: Lev Shlosberg / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
A second protocol of violation under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation on “discrediting the armed forces” was drawn up against Lev Shlosberg, the leader of the Pskov Yabloko and a member of the Federal Political Committee of the party. This time, the accusations were connected with one of the broadcasts on the Grazhdanin TV channel.
Decision by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko No. 152, dated 15 April, 2022
Published on 21 April, 2022
Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
A great disaster on the scale of a national catastrophe, threatening the very existence of Russia, happened to our country.
An authoritarian government acting according to Bolshevik models plunged Russia into this disaster.
A fundamental misunderstanding of modern world realities and historical prospects led to an anti-European course, a senseless confrontation with the West and a claim to the right to arbitrarily limit the sovereignty of neighboгrs in the post-Soviet space. This course naturally led to a dead end.
Decision by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko No. 154, dated 15 April, 2022
Published on 21 April, 2022
Photo by Anatoly Zhdanov/Kommersant
The tragedy in Ukraine has been going on and even unfolding. No one now can and does not want to answer how many people have really died there. The UN data on the number of those killed can be underestimated at times, which is also recognised by the UN.
The situation is extremely dangerous. The development of events in the direction of further escalation threatens with new huge human casualties, as well as an increasingly likely big war up to a nuclear collision. This must not be allowed.
Photo: Yuri Shein / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
April 20 marks the 70th anniversary of Yuri Karlovich Shein, a member of the Yabloko Party Arbitration Commission. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov congratulates Yuri Shein on his anniversary.
Photo: Viktor Shalyakin /Photo from social networks
On 20 April, Viktor Shalyakin, a member of the Regional Council of the Novgorod branch of the Yabloko Party and the Chairman of the city branch of the party, got three protocols at once on an administrative offense. This was reported by Anna Cherepanova, the leader of the Novgorod Regiona branch of Yabloko.
Photo: Lyubov Zhiltsova / Photo by pskov.yabloko.ru
On 25 February, Lyubov Zhiltsova, a deputy of the Palkinsky District Assembly in the Pskov Region from Yabloko, published on her personal page on the VKontakte socail network her photo with a sheet of paper with a slogan “No ** ***”. On 18 April, police officers came to her house in the village of Slopygino, Palkinsky District, and drew up an administrative protocol of offense against her for “discrediting the armed forces” (Article 20.3.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).
Photo: Vyacheslav Chernov / Photo from social networks
On 18 April, the Investigative Committee of the Kemerovo Region, basing on a report from the deputy head of the regional Centre for Counteracing Extremism, opened a criminal case against Vyacheslav Chernov, a civil activist, entrepreneur, and a candidate for the State Duma from the Yabloko party in 2021.
On 26 April, the Yabloko Party University will host an online lecture “Theater of War. Bloodshed in the Art of Drama and the Art of Drama in Bloodshed”. The lecturer is Alexander Gnezdilov, theatre director, artistic director of the Nest Creative Association, editor-in-chief of the Smart Power Journal, and a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko Party and the Public Constitutional Council. The lecture will begin at 18:00 MSK.
Yabloko has applied for May Day demonstrations “For Peace!” in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Miass and Magnitogorsk.
In Moscow, the applicants for the action were Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, and Andrei Morev, head of the Yakimanka urban district, deputy chairman of the Moscow Yabloko.
At the beginning of his speech at the 21st Party Congress, Yabloko Party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov drew the delegates’ attention to a printed replica of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, which was placed on the wall instead of the traditional banner with Yabloko party symbols.
“Today’s fate of many cities in Ukraine – Mariupol and Chernihiv, the most ancient city of the ancient Kievan Rus state, repeats the fate of Guernica. Opening our congress, we must speak about all those who died in this massacre. Civilian and military, Ukrainians and Russians, children, women, men, young and old. Those who was bemauled, wounded, raped, became a refugee, who is now hiding from the shells in the basements. There are millions of them. We are their voice in Russia, of those who are dying and praying for peace,” Yabloko Chairman said.
Photo: Zhanna Shlosberg-Kozlovich and Lev Shlosberg / Photo from social networks
Lev Shlosberg, Chairman of the Pskov branch of Yabloko and a member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, and his wife Zhanna were fined 32,000 and 30,000 roubles, respectively, for “discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation”. This decision was made today by the Pskov City Court.
The 21the Congress of the Yabloko party adopted the final block of amendments to the Yabloko Charter. It was the forth stage of the Congress and it took place on 16 April. The key changes concerned the procedure for joining the party and responsibility of party members.
