Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
On the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of the Great Terror on 5 August, a Yabloko party delegation visited the Sandarmokh site in Karelia – the place of execution and burial of more than 6,000 people in 1937-1938. The memorial event was attended by Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Karelia Legislative Assembly deputy Emilia Slabunova, Yabloko Deputy Chairman Vladimir Dorokhov, Yabloko Federal Political Committee member Ivan Bolshakov, head of the Yabloko apparatus Yevgenia Vlasova, Moscow Yabloko Deputy Chairman Kirill Goncharov, Petrozavodsk Council deputy Dmitry Rybakov and other party members.
Photo: The building of the administration of the White Sea-Baltic Canal in Medvezhyegorsk / Photo by Anri Bergius, Wikipedia
The Yabloko party has nominated seven candidates for deputies of the councils of three municipal districts in the Republic of Karelia – Medvezhyegorsky, Lakhdenpokhsky and Muyezersky. The campaign in Karelia will be held under the all-party slogan: “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”.
On 6 August, the tragic 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Yabloko party invites its members and supporters to a screening of the film Children of Hiroshima.
What is desperately needed now? Russia and Ukraine sign an agreement for an immediate ceasefire: troops stop at current positions and cease fire. After this, substantive negotiations are needed about the conditions and ways to achieve peaceful coexistence: about the new content of Russian-Ukrainian relations, European security architecture and its prospective geopolitical arrangement, as well as strategic stability between Russia and the United States.
The US under Donald Trump still remains a potentially influential factor in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. However, Donald Trump has no substantive position regarding what should be discussed after the ceasefire and what should be strived for. This is the problem.
Europe ostensibly supports Trump in words. However, instead of seizing the moment, forming a substantive plan for advancing towards peace in Ukraine and filling Trump’s peace initiatives with this content, European leaders are doing absolutely nothing that could contribute to a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, the position of ruling European politicians is directed in the opposite, destructive direction – essentially, they are implementing a foreign policy line that is contrary to a ceasefire. As German Chancellor
Friedrich Merz recently stated, “diplomacy is exhausted”. Such testimonies about intentions to continue hostilities (by proxy) are often heard in ruling European elites and in leading Western media.
Congratulations from Nikolai Rybakov, Grigory Yavlinsky, and St.Petersburg Yabloko, 28.07.2025
Photo: Alexander Shishlov / Photo from the Yabloko Press Service
On 28 July, Alexander Shishlov, Coordinator of the Yabloko party’s Federal Political Committee and leader of the Yabloko faction in the St Petersburg Legislative Assembly, celebrates his 70th birthday. He receives warm congratulations from party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky, and the St.Petersburg branch of the party.
Photo: Igor Khomechko, Irina Komleva and Vyacheslav Polezhaev
Yabloko candidates in single-mandate constituencies Irina Komleva (constituency No. 13), Vyacheslav Polezhaev (constituency No. 19) and Igor Khomechko (constituency No. 20) are standing for election to the first convocation of the Council of Deputies of the Kolsky Municipal District of the Murmansk region. The new council of deputies was formed after the municipal reform. The Yabloko candidates’ campaign will be conducted under the party-wide slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Yabloko party has determined candidates for elections to the Tomsk City Duma, which will take place in September. On the eve, a pre-election conference took place in the city, attended by party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov. In an interview with RIA Tomsk, he spoke about what qualities deputies should possess, how budget policies can be changed, and why it is impossible to solve key urban problems without peace in the country.
On 22 July, another hearing took place at the court of the first instance on the case of Yabloko Deputy Chairman Lev Shlosberg for violating “foreign agent” legislation. The proceedings lasted almost three hours and were postponed to 30 July due to the public prosecutor’s participation in another court hearing.
Photo: Konstantin Smirnov in court / Photo by Ryazan Yabloko
The Soviet District Court of Ryazan refused to change the preventive measure for Editor-in-Chief of internet media Vid Sboku (View from the Side) and Yabloko municipal deputy Konstantin Smirnov. The politician’s defence insisted on transferring the politician to house arrest, but the position of the investigation and court remained unchanged.
Photo: Andrei Tsatsenko / Photo from the personal archive
On 22 July, members of the Bureau of the Pskov regional branch of the Yabloko party voted for the nomination of Andrei Tsatsenko as a Yabloko candidate for by-election to the city parliament in district No. 3. The candidate’s campaign will be held under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom!”.
Photo: Konstantin Smirnov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 23 July, the Sovietsky District Court of Ryazan will consider the investigator’s petition to extend the arrest for Konstantin Smirnov, Editor-in-Chief of the Internet media Vid Sboku (Side View) and deputy of the Dubrovichy Council from Yabloko. The journalist and politician has been in custody for six months in a criminal case of extortion. Konstantin Smirnov does not admit guilt.
A third member of the Yabloko party has been deprived of freedom for his beliefs and needs support. The leader of Kamchatka Yabloko, Vladimir Yefimov, began serving a two-year sentence in the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky penal colony in the Far East as part of a criminal case on “discrediting the army”. The journalist, founder of the TVK television company – the first non-state television company in the USSR, as been imprisoned, but does not lose hope for a better future.
Statement by the Bureau of the Novgorod Region branch of Yabloko, 21.07.2025
Photo: Alexander Dronov and Stanislav Shultsev / Photo from the social media of Acting Governor of Novgorod Region
On 18 July 2025, [media] reported about the arrest of Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Novgorod Region Stanislav Shultsev. He was with receiving a bribe worth 250 million roubles. Stanislav Shultsev is a member of the team of Andrei Nikitin, the former Governor of the Novgorod Region, now Minister of Transport of Russia, and Alexander Dronov, his associate and now Acting Governor of the Novgorod Region. Stanislav Shultsev worked in the Government of the Novgorod Region for eight years, overseeing road management and transport issues. Throughout this time, the road contracting system was based on non-competitive procurement, placing large lots worth about a billion roubles each in competitions and auctions, and concluding contracts with the same contractors. The absence of competition did not lead to reduced procurement prices or budget savings and opened up opportunities for abuse.
Photo: Vasily Yeremin and Yevgeny Kaverzin, lead candidates of the Yabloko list and incumbent Tomsk City Duma deputies
The Tomsk regional branch of the party nominated 16 people on the list and five candidates in single-mandate constituencies for elections to Tomsk City Duma at the conference of the regional Yabloko branch which took place on 19 July. Another five candidates are standing for election as deputies to the Seversk City Duma. The electoral campaign in the region will be conducted under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”.
Incumbent Yabloko deputies in Ikrinskoye village council of Kurakh District and in Shikhikent village council of Suleyman-Stalsky District, Albert Esedov and Vagid Devletkhanov, are standing for election to the councils again – their five-year terms expire in September.” The candidates’ electoral campaigns will be conducted under the party-wide slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”.
The current political regime in Iran, which marked its 46th anniversary in February 2025, has just undergone a powerful test. Military operations by Israel and the US have posed a serious challenge to it. If changes were to become possible in the country, who could implement them? What is the Iranian reformist movement, from which the current President Masoud Pezeshkian emerged? Are there supporters of liberal democracy in Iran? Where do they come from? Why do they hold such views? All these issues will be discussed by Ilya Vaskin, senior lecturer and researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern, Caucasian and Central Asian Studies at the Higher School of Economics and author of the Telegram channel “Iranian Politics”.
Photo: Yabloko candidates Viktor Stenshin and Vladislav Arkadyev
The regional branch of the Yabloko party in Chuvashia has nominated three candidates for the Cheboksary City Assembly, who are conducting their electoral campaigns under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”. Each Yabloko candidate needs to submit to the electoral commissions about 100 signatures from city residents in support of their nomination by 4 August. Elections in Cheboksary will take place on 14 September.
Photo: Vologda / Photo by Usadboved, Creative Commons
Seven candidates for Peace and Freedom have been nominated for elections to the city dumas of Vologda and Cherepovets, as well as to the representative body of the first convocation of Vytegra Municipal District. All candidates need to submit to the electoral commissions from 14 to 50 signatures in support of their nomination by 2 August.
Photo: Conference of Moscow regional branch of Yabloko / Photo by regional branch of the party
Yabloko has nominated 16 candidates in multi-mandate electoral constituencies in Podolsk, Shatura, Balashikha and Fryazino. The candidates’ electoral campaign will be conducted under the party-wide slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire Agreement!”. For registration in the elections, all Yabloko candidates need to submit to the electoral commission voters’ signatures in support of their nomination.
Photo: Kirill Goncharov and Maxim Kruglov / Photo by the Yaboko Press Service
The State Duma Committee on State Building has approved amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, proposing fines of up to 5,000 roubles for the search for extremist materials on the Internet and gaining access to them.
