The appeals chamber of Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday turned down Yabloko’s challenge to the cancellation of its federal candidate list. The party said the chamber had upheld the earlier decision to revoke that registration, which keeps Yabloko out of next month’s State Duma elections.
Yabloko is generally described as the only registered Russian party that has called for an end to the war. A pro-Kremlin party had argued before the courts that it was backed by Western states and was seeking to undermine the vote; Yabloko’s leader, Nikolay Rybakov, described police detentions of party supporters as intimidation.
The party had operated inside the system rather than outside it — registered, running candidates. Removing its list closes the last formal route by which a voter opposed to the war could say so in September without breaking a law. The election proceeds regardless; what has changed is what the ballot paper can contain.