Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Photo: Anatoly Razumov, head of the Centre for Returned Names at the Russian National Library, and Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov
A delegation of the Yabloko party, led by party leader Nikolai Rybakov and head of the party faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Emilia Slabunova, visited the Sandarmokh – the site of mass executions during the Great Terror of 1937-1938 in the Joseph Stalin’s period.
The Conference of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party decided to nominate seven Yabloko candidates for the snap elections of municipal deputies in the Kurkino district of Moscow. Each of the candidates will have to collect 14 signatures of district residents in support of their nomination by 10 August. The candidates will conduct a campaign under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”.
Photo: Delegates of the Moscow Regional Yabloko Conference / Photo by regional branch of Yabloko
On 2 August, the Territorial Electoral Commission of Sergiyev Posad will decide to refuse to register the Yabloko list of six people and two candidates in single-mandate constituencies in the elections of deputies of the District Council. Three more single-mandate candidates have already been refused registration. Court hearings are also taking place in the Leninsky urban district, where they are trying to remove three already registered Yabloko candidates from the elections. Yabloko fears that the Moscow Region authorities have decided to remove all 23 Yabloko candidates from the elections.
Statement by the Federal Bureau of Yabloko, 2.08.2024
Photo by Andrei Zhdanov, Kommersant
The State Duma has adopted amendments to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, which will increase the amount of state fees for court cases for both individuals and organisations. For example, the fee for challenging a decision or action of a government agency will increase tenfold for individuals – up to 3,000 roubles, for filing an appeal – by twenty times, also up to 3,000 roubles, and for filing a complaint to the Supreme Court – by 47 (!) times – from 150 to 7,000 roubles.
Photo: Ksenia Cherepanova / Photo by the regional branch of Yabloko
Yabloko considers the court’s decision unlawful and unfounded, it will be appealed. At the same time, Ksenia Cherepanova filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation demanding to exclude her from the register of persons “affiliated with a foreign agent”. The case will be considered by the Novgorod District Court. The first hearing will be held on 13 August.
Photo: Footage from the airport in Ankara with planes from countries participating in the prisoner exchange / Photo: a screenshot of the broadcast of the Turkish TV channel NTV
The main event of today is the prisoner exchange between Russia, the USA, Germany, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Belarus. Those to whom we wrote letters to pre-trial detention centres and penal colonies, and about whom we worried all these months and recent years, are finally free. Among them are Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, Andrei Pivovarov, Liliya Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, Sasha Skochilenko, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Kevin Lik.
110 years ago, on 1 August, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia and our country entered World War I. More than 10 million servicemen from all sides fell victim to it, over 22 million were wounded. Russia’s losses in the war amounted to over three million people, including two million who died at the front and over one million civilians.
Photo: Maxim Kruglov with his group of support outside the Moscow City Court on 31 July, 2024 / Photo from Maxim Kruglov’s social media
The Moscow City Court refused to register Yabloko candidate and current City Duma deputy Maxim Kruglov for the elections at its hearing on 31 July. Maxim Kruglov’s team is considering appealing the Moscow City Court’s decision.
“The decision is absolutely political – in the opinion of the authorities, there can be no real competition and real representation in these elections,” Kruglov commented.
Photo: Vladimir Dorokhov at the Tula Regional Electoral Commission / Photo from social media
In two weeks, the Yabloko branch in Tula collected 2,316 voters’ signatures in support of the nomination of Yabloko candidates for Peace and Freedom for the elections to the city parliament. Within ten days, the electoral commission must make a decision on registration of the candidates.
Photo: Ksenia Cherepanova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Electoral Commission has decided label once again Yabloko’s Ksenia Cherepanova as a candidate “affiliated with a foreign agent”. The Ministry of Justice provided such information to the electoral commission in connection with the Ksenia’s participation in the unregistered movement of independent election observation Golos. The politician appealed to court.
Photo: Yabloko’s placard “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire agreement!”
The Kirovsky District Court of St.Petersburg considered the complaint of Yabloko candidates for the Narva District Municipal Council against the decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No 41 (candidates Ivan Zlobin, Eduard Nikolayev, Marina Peslyak, Pavel Samsonov, Elizaveta Balakina, Alexei Bogdanov, Anna Karulicheva, and Alexei Rzyankin), and the Petrogradsky District Court of St.Petersburg considered the complaint of candidates for the Posadsky District Municipal Council against the decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No 18 (candidates Anna Zalevina and Andrei Stepanenko). Judging by the decisions, that have already been received in full, the courts fully reproduced the positions of the Territorial Electoral Commissions and ignored all of Yabloko’s arguments and objections.
Photo: Olga Yurkevich / Photo by the regional branch of Yabloko
According to the draft decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No. 6 of St.Petersburg, the reason for refusing to register Olga Yurkevich, a pediatric anesthesiologist and Yabloko candidate in electoral district No. 18, was that Yabloko allegedly failed to notify the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission of its intentions to hold an event at which Yurkevich was nominated. According to Yabloko lawyers, this draft decision does not comply with either the federal or the city legislation. According to the law on political parties, only Territorial Electoral Commission No. 6 had to be notified of the meeting of the Bureau of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party, at which the decision to nominate Yurkevich was made, and this was done. The party will seek the registration of Olga Yurkevich in court.
Photo: The Vyborg Castle / Photo from Wikimedia Commons
The electoral commissions of the Vyborg and Boksitogorsk districts of Leningrad region have registered five candidates from the Yabloko party for municipal elections. The Yabloko candidates are campaigning under the general party slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”. Public figures from the Vyborg District Anastasia, Diana and Dmitry Solovyovs, and Maxim Evarestov are fighting for mandates in municipal councils. The current deputy of Boksitogorsk urban settlement Vladimir Shibayev is running for a new term.
The Territorial Electoral Commission of the Gdov District registered Yevgeny Vasiliyev as a candidate for the post of head of the Gdov District from the Yabloko party. Yevgeny Vasiliyev was presented with a registration resolution and a candidate certificate.
Photo: Maxim Kruglov outside the Moscow City Court on 26 July, 2024 / Photo from Maxim Kruglov’s personal archive
Maxim Kruglov is challenging in court the refusal of the electoral commission to register him in the Moscow City Duma elections. Today, the Yabloko candidate in electoral district No. 13 filed a lawsuit with the Moscow City Court demanding that the district electoral commission’s decision to deny Kruglov access to the elections be declared unlawful. The court must consider the application within five days.
The State Duma promised to reduce the download speed of YouTube by 70% in the next two weeks. On stationary computers, the download speed may decrease to 40% by the end of this week, and to 70% by the end of next week. At the same time, this measure will not affect connections via mobile communications. This was reported by State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein.
Photo: Viktor Zagorodnikov at the District Electoral Commission / Photo from social media
On 24 July, Viktor Zagorodnikov, a candidate in the by-election for a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory in single-mandate electoral district No. 10, submitted 3,007 signatures of district residents to the electoral commission in support of his nomination. The commission will decide on the registration of the candidate from Yabloko by 2 August. The district includes Birilyussky, Bolshemurtinsky, Bolsheuluisky, Emelyanovsky, Kazachinsky, and Kozulsky districts and the Pirovsky municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The candidate is campaigning under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom!” For a ceasefire agreement!”.
Photo: Centre for Cultural Development in Lyady, April 2024/ Photo from the community “Citizens of the Plussky District”
The Pskov Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for the Pskov region, after an appeal from Yabloko deputy Artur Gaiduk to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin, carried out an inspection, and, on 5 July, opened a criminal case on the grounds of a crime under of Article 159 Part 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organised group or on a particularly large scale). Artur Gaiduk was informed about this by the head of the Pskov Interdistrict Investigative Department, Ivan Vasiliyev.
One of the key problems of the Russian economy, and perhaps of entire life in the country, is people’s lack of understanding of the future. Citizens do not have clear ideas about the future. People live for today.
Moreover, even according to official data from Rosstat (which should be treated, to put it mildly, with understanding), 13.5 million people in our country (and this is almost every tenth) lived below the poverty line as of the beginning of 2024. According to international economic analytics, Russia, according to the criterion of “the per capita GDP at market exchange rates”, is approaching 70th place in the world with an income of 1.2 million roubles, being behind such countries as, for example, Trinidad and Tabago (1.6 million roubles) and Guyana (1.8 million roubles).
