Yabloko seeks anti-war vote in Russia election

Russia's liberal Yabloko party is trying to use September parliamentary elections to build support for its call for a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, despite tight political controls and little expectation of winning seats.

Yabloko casts itself as Russia's only opposition party openly in favour of a ceasefire. Party leader Nikolay Rybakov told AFP in Moscow that participation would be worthwhile if it brought peace “even a single day closer”.

The party faces steep electoral odds. Every Russian parliamentary vote since 2003 has been won by the ruling United Russia party, which supports President Vladimir Putin. Yabloko has not won seats in the State Duma since 2003, and a poll earlier this year put it on three percent support, below the five-percent threshold needed to enter the lower house.

The September vote will be the first parliamentary election since Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive in 2022. Yabloko's leaders are presenting the election as a way to show that many Russians oppose the war. A June poll by the Levada Centre, which Moscow has designated a “foreign agent”, found 64 percent of Russians in favour of peace negotiations with Kyiv, rising to 78 percent among people aged 18 to 24.

The party is also campaigning against internet shutdowns introduced by Russian authorities to counter Ukrainian drone attacks, and says younger people are showing more interest in politics. Yabloko says about 400 candidates are standing for the party, nearly a third of them under 30.

Yabloko's campaign could still be stopped before the vote. Russia's Supreme Court is due on Monday to hear a case brought by a nationalist pro-Kremlin party seeking to bar its candidates, after Yabloko received support from exiled opposition figures including Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Yabloko members have faced increasing pressure over their opposition to the war. Deputy leader Maxim Kruglov was jailed for seven years in June over social media posts critical of the conflict, and authorities arrested Lev Shlosberg, head of the party's Pskov branch, last year. Rybakov was fined in December for publishing a photo of Navalny on social media, barring him from running in the September vote.

Some Kremlin critics question whether Yabloko's participation gives the election an appearance of pluralism. Independent analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP the party posed no real threat to Putin because it lacked sufficient channels to spread its message.