LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Russia's Supreme Court on Monday barred the liberal Yabloko party from contesting September's parliamentary elections, sidelining the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow's war in Ukraine.
More than four years after Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, the decision highlights the authorities' intolerance of anti-war views and further narrows the already limited space for dissent in Russian politics.
"Excluding Yabloko from the election means refusing dialogue with people who ask questions that are uncomfortable for the authorities," Nikolai Rybakov, the party's leader, said, vowing to appeal the decision.
The court ruled in favour of a lawsuit filed by the small pro-Kremlin nationalist party Rodina, which sought Yabloko's exclusion from the election. Rodina alleged that Yabloko had received undeclared campaign support, including from Western sources, among other accusations.
During a day-long hearing, Rybakov said there was no evidence to support the allegations and described the case as an unconstitutional attack on freedom of thought by political opponents seeking to clear the field of rivals.
In a rare show of defiance, a few hundred — mostly young — supporters gathered outside the court as police stood by. Some carried apples to display their affiliation to Yabloko, which means apple in Russian. One wore a Russian flag as a cape.
Once a leading liberal force in post-Soviet Russia, Yabloko now has only a handful of regional seats and none in the national parliament, where Putin-backed United Russia and other broadly pro-Kremlin parties are set to retain their dominance after September’s vote.
But the election campaign provided Yabloko with a platform to grab more attention than usual for its call for Russia to sign a ceasefire agreement— something the Kremlin has repeatedly ruled out saying it wants an overall deal that meets its own conditions.
Outside the court, supporter Yevgeniya said she felt duty-bound to turn out. "We think it's essential we show that there are lots of us, that we're united in our support for this party, because we all want peace."
SUPPORT FOR WAR
The move to shut out Yabloko comes at a politically sensitive moment for the Kremlin, as elections approach and the war increasingly spills into daily life. Ukrainian long-range drones have repeatedly hit energy infrastructure and logistics hubs, disrupting fuel supplies and many businesses.
Public opposition to the war is difficult to assess due to strict state controls on dissent, but the share of Russians who say they support the actions of their armed forces in Ukraine fell to 66% in July, the lowest level since February 2022, according to the Levada Center, a non-governmental pollster that is on Moscow's foreign agent list.
"It is obvious that the demand for peace and freedom has proved significantly stronger today than the authorities had assumed," Rybakov said.
Citing national security interests, the authorities have used increasingly stringent wartime censorship laws to crack down on those opposed to the conflict, prompting many activists and independent media outlets to leave the country.
Boris Nadezhdin, a politician who had attempted to run for parliament on an anti-war platform, was designated as a "foreign agent" last month. He has since fled.
(Reporting by Reuters. Writing by Maxim Rodionov and Alessandra Prentice. Editing by William Maclean and Mark Potter)
