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: one of the post cards “Freedom to Political Prisoners!”
This week, actions in support of political prisoners continue in regional offices of Yabloko. Yabloko members and activists sign postcards specially printed for women political prisoners – civil activists, politicians and journalists who are kept behind bars.
Photo: Nikolai Koshman immediately after the attack
Nikolai Koshman, a Chelyabinsk lawyer and a candidate for the State Duma from Yabloko, was attacked in Chelyabinsk in the morning of 6 March. Unidentified people were on the watch for Koshman at the entrance of his apartments block. Nikolai has a broken arm and jaw. Now the lawyer is in the hospital.
Photo: Mikhail Afanasyev / Photo from social media
The materials of the criminal case on the dissemination of “fakes about the army” using official position (Article 207.3, Part 2, paragraph “a” of the Criminal Code of the RF) against Mikhail Afanasyev, a member of Yabloko and the editor of the Novy Focus online media, were sent to the Abakan City Court. The Deputy Public Prosecutor of Khakassia approved the indictment. The case file states that the National Guard Afanasyev wrote about in one of his articles is part of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.
On 2 March, the traditional Yabloko action of writing letters to Russian political prisoners was held at the central office of the Yabloko party, organised by the Moscow branch of the party with the support of the PolitzekInfo project. The action was dedicated to women – political prisoners, who fell into the millstones of the system. Letters to women – political prisoners and other political prisoners were written by more than 100 people. During the evening, 500 postcards were signed for 42 political prisoners.
Photo: Alexander Goncharenko / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
According to local media, a pensioner from Novoaltaysk was found guilty of “discrediting the use of the Russian army” as part of a “special operation”.
A 69-year-old man, put likes under photographs and publications on the topic of “discrediting the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation” as part of a “special military operation”. By decision of the Novoaltaysky City Court, he was brought to administrative responsibility for the relevant offense under Article 20.3.3, Part 1, of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. The pensioner was fined 15,000 roubles.
Photo: Iya Boronina connecting with the Moscow City Court / Photo from the personal archive
On 27 February, the Moscow City Court, as a court of appeal, held hearings on the claim of Iya Boronina, Chair of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtia, against the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage (Rosprirodnadzor) and the Federal Regulatory Operator (the Russian Atomic Agency, Rosatom) to invalidate the positive conclusion of the State Ecological Expertise on the Kambaraka plant – a facility for untilisation of hazardous and especially hazardous waste, – and the Order of Rosprirodnadzor on its approval.
Photo: The Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies / Photo by sobranie.pskov.ru
Four MPs voted for the bill, thirteen voted against, and six abstained. Earlier, the Governor of the Pskov region, Mikhail Vedernikov, wrote in his opinion on the Yabloko bill on criminal liability for propaganda of nuclear war that “a call to commit legal actions cannot be a crime,” therefore, the initiative could not be supported.
The administration of the President of the Russian Federation believes that there are no legal grounds for issuing a separate decree on the completion of partial mobilisation. This is announced in an official response to the inquiry of Boris Vishnevsky, deputy head of the Yabloko faction of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. The response came two months later after the inquiry.
On February 25, the Rostov-on-Don branch of the Yabloko party held the second charity event “A Yabloko Pie” (in Russian “yabloko” means an “apple”). This time, ten pies prepared by Yabloko activists under the guidance of the chefs of the partner restaurant of the Shamaika House were donated through the volunteers of the “Rostov Helps” association to refugees from Ukraine. Past time, the participants cooked pies for nursing homes for elderly people in the Rostov-on-Don region.
Photo: Yevgeny Gontmakher / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 13 March, the Yabloko Party University will host a lecture “Russian Social Policies after 24 February, 2022” by Yevgeny Gontmakher, Doctor of Economics, professor at the Higher School of Economics, a member of the Public Constitutional Council, and a member of the Yabloko party.
Photo: “Freedom to all political prisoners!” by Olga Kovalchuk, the Republic of Karelia, Russia
On the eve of International Women’s Day, 8 March, the Moscow branch of Yabloko will hold an action of writing letters to political prisoners. We would like to dedicate this action to women political activists, as well as to all women who have suffered from the actions of the regime and are forced to celebrate the holiday behind bars. Yabloko printed postcards with flowers drawn by artists and those who are not indifferent to civic activists, journalists and politicians in trouble.
Photo: Viktor Shalyakin / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Viktor Shalyakin, Chairman of the local branch of the Yabloko party in Novgorod, won the second lawsuit against the Russian Federation in connection with the illegal prosecution under the administrative article on “discrediting the army”. On 27 February, the Novgorod District Court satisfied the claims of Viktor Shalyakin against the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance for compensation of the court costs and compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
On 27 February, eight years ago, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was killed by the walls of the Kremlin on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. On the day of the murder, Yabloko annually holds commemorative events in Moscow and Russian regions in memory of Boris Nemtsov who opposed the war and was killed because of it.
Yabloko honoured the memory of Boris Nemtsov who was murdered by the Kremlin walls on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, on 27 February 2015.
Today, on the eighth anniversary of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the leaders and activists of Yabloko came to the scene of the tragedy – the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. The “Nemtsov Bridge” people’s handmade memorial became a place of mourning for those who knew Boris Nemtsov, and those who, like Nemtsov, did not want war.
On 11 March, the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko and the human rights project “You Are Not Alone 74” (https://t.me/tyneodin74 ) will hold a charity auction in support of political prisoners and those persecuted for political reasons. The auction will start at 15:00. Lots, which anyone can put up by filling out the form (https://clck.ru/33e3WR), will be set for the auction. A lot can be a book, a painting, a handicraft, a piece of furniture, etc. In addition, it can be symbolic, but something unique.
Photo: Viktor Kogan-Yasny / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
What would I say should be done, if – very unlikely – some external experts asked me what is needed for Ukraine and Europe now?
I would say that a “road map” is needed. For ten years and twenty years. Ceasefire, restoration of Ukraine, return to the borders according to the UN Charter and OSCE norms, political transformations that would allow leveling internal nidi of instability in the future Ukraine, in future fundamentally new circumstances, transformations in Russia that will allow a full return to cooperation with the EU and NATO to mutual benefit, peaceful relations between the United States and China while respecting the interests of the Republic of China in Taiwan, and transformation of the People’s Republic of China. Steps towards the “Europeanisation” of US laws, and the abolition of the death penalty there. Return to the idea of a Greater Europe with a common vision of a peaceful future.
This happened not on 24 February, 2022. This happened much earlier – in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996 and then again from 1999 to 2006; in Georgia in 2008; in Crimea and Donbass in 2014; in Syria in 2015; when the Russian Constitution was changed in 2020, and during the [so-called] “Smart Voting” in 2021 [calling to vote for anyone but the United Russia party and ignoring the fact that other parliamentary parties supported United Russia] that supported Putin’s main allies in the special military operation… But on 24 February, 2022, a catastrophe occurred. Those who were killed cannot be returned back to life. Broken lives cannot be glued together.
Today, on the eve of one year since the start of Russia’s “special operation” on the territory of Ukraine, Yabloko held a marathon “Say Yes to the Peace!”. The organisers of the marathon demonstrated 45 videos they received from Moscow and the Moscow region, Omsk, Arkhangelsk, Rostov, Voronezh, Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Ivanovo, Barnaul, Kirov, Saratov, Kemerovo and other Russian cities. Members and supporters of Yabloko recalled in the videos how they lived through this diffiult year, and what gave them strength. Yabloko also broadcasted excerpts from the books and poems about war.
Press Release, 22.02.2023, based on bfm.ru, rbc.ru, pravda.ru
Photo: Alexei Arbatov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 22 February, the State Duma approved the suspension of Russia’s participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. This happened the day after the announcement of Vladimir Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly. On 21 February, the President announced that Russia was suspending participation in the START III Treaty, which was signed in 2010 by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. Acad. Alexei Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of the Political Committee of the Yabloko party, believes that the United States can be expected to withdraw from the treaty in the near future.
Photo: A response letter from Yuri Dmitriyev, imprisoned head of the Karelian branch of the Memorial human rights group to the activists of the Novgorod Yabloko: “There is such a thing called “peace” (when there is no war), and, whatever paradoxically it may sound, we must fight for it! And then the world (the Universe) will become better.
Yabloko actions of writing letters of support to Russian political prisoners, which have already become traditional, will be held at the central office of the Yabloko party and in the offices of its regional branches. This time we are going to pay special attention at our actions (which will take place in late February and early March) to women political prisoners. Yabloko is preparing a series of postcards with flowers, drawn by artists who are simply not indifferent to the fate of civil activists, journalists and politicians who are in trouble.
