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: Marina Zheleznyakova / Photo by the Yabloko branch in the Maritime Territory
Since August 2025, Primorsky Regional Court has been hearing a criminal case brought under Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code (“Rehabilitation of Nazism”) against Marina Zheleznyakova, Deputy Chair of the Yabloko regional branch in Maritime Territory. She is charged with alleged dissemination of “deliberately false information about the USSR’s activities during the Second World War” made in her Telegram post on 9 May 2021. The criminal case was opened three years later – in 2024. At the defence’s request, a jury has been brought into the case.
Watch the discussion switching into English soundtrack
Once again about the necessity of concluding an immediate ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. It is important for all participants in the conflict — both direct and indirect — to understand that in current conditions, its escalation, as is already happening, will lead neither to a “local military clash” between Russia and NATO, nor to an exchange of “proportional strikes on the enemy’s strategic targets”. An armed confrontation between Russia and NATO will almost immediately escalate into a large-scale nuclear war with all the ensuing consequences.
From 18 to 21 September, the Yabloko party retreat-2025 “New Generation of Yabloko Members: Understanding, Speaking, and Persuading” took place in the Ryazan Region. Twenty young people from different regions of Russia from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, became participants in this event, which was of a new format for the party.
In late September and early October, Yabloko party regional offices will host traditional actions of writing letters to political prisoners. The actions will be held in Yabloko offices in different cities throughout Russia from 20 September through to 8 October.
Boris Vishnevsky special for the Yabloko web-site, 19.09.2025
Photo: Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev on the Mausoleum tribune / Photo from akg-images, EAST NEWS
Vladimir Putin called on deputies to “depoliticise” Stalin’s role in victory in the Great Patriotic War [a term used in the former USSR, Russia and some post-Soviet states to describe the Eastern Front of World War II, fought primarily between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany between 22 June 1941 and 9 May 1945]. The President said this at a meeting with leaders of the State Duma factions. “In general, everything connected with the Great Patriotic War, and with what role Stalin played in the Victory, needs to be kept in mind and we should try to depoliticise this,” Vladimir Putin explained. The President also added that one should not forget the “numerous problems connected with repressions” that existed during Stalin’s rule.
Yabloko Deputy Chairman Boris Vishnevsky notes that what President Vladimir Putin now calls “problems connected with repressions,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called differently in 2010:
Photo: Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
At the first session of St Petersburg’s parliament after summer vacations, the Yabloko faction proposed that Legislative Assembly deputies adopt an appeal to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about cancelling the blocking of calls in popular messengers WhatsApp and Telegram introduced by Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications).
Photo: Conditions at the DogTown shelter / Photo from the Mona Telegram channel
Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent an appeal to Public Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, demanding punishment for animal abusers – the owners of the DogTown dog shelter.
Drawing dreams, making wishes and feeling like an important part of the community – this is the kind of workshop that Yabloko devised together with volunteers for refugee children whom the Committee for Civil Assistance is taking care of. The children painted with acrylic paints, decorated biscuits, and also danced to their favourite music, marvelled at the wonders of a bubble show and congratulated each other on the start of the new school year.
Photo: Campaign billboard in Veliky Novgorod / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
In the recent elections, under conditions of ongoing “special operation” and state repressions against dissidents, Yabloko managed to get elected to the Kaluga City Duma, as well as four municipal councils in the Pskov Region. In total, the party nominated 270 candidates in 27 Russian regions this year, including a candidate for Governor of the Novgorod Region and candidates for deputies in two regional legislative bodies (the Kurgan and Chelyabinsk regions). Most candidates needed to submit to electoral commissions voters’ or municipal deputies’ signatures in support of their nomination. As a result, 164 candidates in 19 regions of Russia conducted their electoral campaign under the unified party slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”. The political results of the election campaign were summarised the day before by Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and party Analytical Centre head Ivan Bolshakov.
164 candidates from the Yabloko party participated in elections in 39 electoral campaigns across 19 regions of our country under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!” Yabloko leaders summarised the political results of the election campaign at a briefing in the party office on the night of 15 September.
164 candidates from the Yabloko party are participating in the elections under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!” in 19 regions of Russia.
On all days of voting, a hotline will be open for members of electoral commissions, observers and voters. Lawyers and electoral experts will be on call.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov with the Novgorod Yabloko team at the Rurikovsky settlement in the Novgorod region/ Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On September 5 and 6, Yabloko party Сhairman Nikolai Rybakov visited the Novgorod Region. The purpose of the visit was to support 12 candidates running in the Novgorod Region elections: eight candidates in the Novgorod Municipal District and four candidates in Borovichi, Okulovka and Staraya Russa.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov with candidate for Pskov City Duma in district No. 3 Andrei Tsatsenko during door-to-door campaining in Pskov
On 2 and 3 September, Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, together with head of the party Analytical Centre Ivan Bolshakov and head of the party staff Yevgenia Vlasova, visited the Pskov Region on a working trip. The main purpose of the trip was to support candidates from Pskov Yabloko before the upcoming municipal elections, in which 48 of Yabloko candidates are registered on party lists and 32 candidates in single-mandate constituencies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma a bill on the denunciation of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Punishment.
The Yabloko party expresses its absolute disagreement with this initiative. This step is unacceptable from the point of view of protecting human rights and complying with our country’s international obligations.
Photo: Yabloko Deputy Chairman Vladimir Dorokhov and Deputy Chairman of Moscow Yabloko Kirill Goncharov at the Beslan victims’ memorial in Moscow / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 1 September 2004, terrorists took more than 1,100 hostages at School No. 1 in the city of Beslan, North Ossetia. For more than two days, the gunmen held children, their parents and school staff in a mined building under torturous conditions—without water or fresh air. On the third day, the school was stormed and most hostages were freed. As a result of the terrorist attack, 314 hostages died, 186 of them children. In total, according to some data 333 people, including rescuers, died and at least 783 were wounded. Today Yabloko honoured the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack at the monument on Solyanka in Moscow.
The Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg has prepared appeals on behalf of the Assembly to the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service Maxim Shaskolsky and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, demanding they influence the situation and stop the violation of fair competition and a number of Constitutional provisions (Articles 8, 23, 29, and 34) in blocking voice calls in Telegram and WhatsApp messengers for Russian citizens. It is also necessary to initiate proceedings for violation of antimonopoly legislation and issue Roskomnadzor (the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications) with an order to cease actions that restrict competition and violate citizens’ rights. Shortly after the documents are registered, St Petersburg parliamentary deputies will have to vote for these appeals.
Surveillance cameras that recognise people’s ethnicity have been launched in St. Petersburg. This was announced by Igor Nikonov, deputy head of the city administration’s committee on information technology and communications, during the “zero readings” of the 2026-2028 city budget. Yabloko deputies in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Olga Shtannikova and Alexander Shishlov criticised the installation of “ethnic-oriented” surveillance cameras.
Da Mosca, in un’intervista esclusiva con Fanpage.it, Grigory Yavlinsky avverte: “I leader europei devono convincere Trump a perseguire un cessate il fuoco immediato in Ucraina, per scongiurare Armageddon”. Il leader social-liberale accusa le fallimentari riforme degli anni ’90: “La Russia di oggi e quel che accade in Ucraina ne sono il prodotto, anche l’Occidente è responsabile”. E vorrebbe “un Europa dall’Atlantico a Vladivostok nel 2050”.
If we set the task of developing not just an agreement on a temporary ceasefire, but a strategic solution on the ways and methods of advancing toward stable and long-term peace, then it is important to discuss the root causes of the tragic conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as a fundamentally different security system in Europe and a new concept of nuclear deterrence in the world.
Not taking a foreign child into a Russian school because they don’t know Russian is stupid. This is the view not only of the Yabloko party, but also of Tatarstan head Rustam Minnikhanov. The speech of the President of Tatarstan at a meeting of education and science workers in Innopolis goes against the federal law that came into force on 1 April 2025. According to new school admission rules, foreign children must be tested on knowledge of Russian. In mid-May it was reported that 81% of applicants were refused testing for various reasons.
