Members of Russia’s last opposition party barred from running for regional parliaments

“The opposition performs the role of dormant institutions. For now, we are all in a kind of zombie sleep. Deputies take part in a pointless ceremony, stand to the sound of the anthem, press buttons… The opposition merely revives this dead theatre. But I want to say that voters can clearly distinguish between the ‘living’ and the ‘dead.’”

This comment was given to Barents Observer, on condition of anonymity, by a politician from Karelia, a northern region of Russia. On 21 April, Emilia Slabunova, a deputy in the regional parliament from the opposition party Yabloko, was detained there. The grounds for the prosecution were a six-year-old publication in which Slabunova wished a speedy recovery to Alexei Navalny after he survived poisoning with Novichok.

According to Russian law enforcement agencies, images of Alexei Navalny are considered extremist symbols, the display of which is prohibited in Russia. In addition, Russian courts regularly punish people for old social media posts, despite the Constitution of the Russian Federation stating that laws do not have retroactive force and cannot be applied retrospectively.

On the same day, Judge Natalya Degot of the Petrozavodsk City Court found Slabunova guilty of distributing extremist materials and fined her 1,000 roubles (approximately US$14). If the ruling comes into force, it will bring Slabunova’s long political career to an end. Under Russian law, any “extremist” activity results in a ban on standing for public office, and Slabunova will lose the opportunity to take part in the elections due to be held in Russia in September 2026.

Slabunova’s case is not unique. During the spring of 2026, Yabloko deputies and activists across Russia began to be fined en masse.

For example, Anton Kostryukov from Novgorod Oblast was fined for posting a photograph of Navalny on VKontakte in 2020. In Saint Petersburg, a court fined Legislative Assembly deputy Alexander Shishlov after he reposted an interview with Grigory Yavlinsky three years ago in which Alexei Navalny was mentioned. In Pskov, a court fined the head of the regional party branch, Artur Gaiduk, who was accused of publishing a photograph of Navalny on Odnoklassniki. According to the defence, the same photograph can still be found on the websites of state media outlets.

An administrative case over an image of Navalny was also initiated against Nikolai Rybakov, the leader of Yabloko. The grounds for the prosecution were a post in which Rybakov expressed condolences to the family of the politician, who died in a penal colony in 2024.

"No one else will tell about what is happening"

Yabloko is the only genuinely opposition party in the country that still has representation in public office. It is not represented in the State Duma; however, its deputies sit in around two dozen regional and municipal bodies. The party openly opposes the war in Ukraine.

“Voting for Yabloko could show that there is a section of the Russian population that opposes the invasion. This undermines the image of unanimous support for the war, and that is the only real significance of Yabloko’s participation in the electoral campaign,” says journalist Valery Potashov from Karelia.

Potashov was forced to leave Russia in 2025 after his home was searched for a second time. His Telegram channel, From Karelia with Freedom, documented life in the region after the start of the full-scale invasion. One of the central figures in his reporting was Emilia Slabunova — not because of any particular sympathy for Yabloko, but because of her exceptionally high level of activity.

The Yabloko deputy tirelessly travels around the republic, attempting to resolve local problems wherever she can. In one instance, Slabunova met residents of a Vepsian settlement where authorities planned to cut down a forest to build a tourist complex — an idea eventually abandoned under public pressure. In another, she photographed a school toilet in the settlement of Ambarny, where pupils still had to use holes in the floor instead of proper lavatories.

“She visits such remote villages, where people are surviving by the skin of their teeth. But they live there; they do not want to abandon their homeland, however pompous that may sound. And people understand that no one else will come and speak about what is happening. By speaking with her, they also begin to think and to understand what is happening,” says a resident of Karelia and active Yabloko supporter, who also requested anonymity.

“Slabunova voiced things that residents of the republic who disagreed with what was happening in the country and the region could not say themselves,” says Valery Potashov. “She brought topics into the public sphere that no longer appeared in the media, because there is effectively no independent media left. She spoke about problems on her Telegram channel and within the walls of the Legislative Assembly. Even when deputies’ speaking time was cut to three minutes, she still used those three minutes.”

Against war, against repression

Not only Yabloko members speak about local issues — in the regions, representatives of various parties sometimes allow themselves to challenge the authorities. However, there are issues on which Yabloko’s position places it unequivocally outside the Russian political mainstream.

The most important is its attitude towards the invasion of Ukraine. At the time of writing, eight Yabloko members had been charged or convicted under anti-war provisions of the Criminal Code, including offences relating to “discrediting the army” and spreading “fake news” about the military. Some received fines, some managed to leave Russia, and five are currently imprisoned. The number of administrative cases for “discrediting the army” is far higher: 37 Yabloko members across Russia have faced prosecution.

Emilia Slabunova has not escaped this pressure either. In 2023, she was fined for arguing that money should be spent on schools rather than on “military operations”. The complaint was filed by another deputy, Leonid Liminchuk, while the analysis supporting the accusation was carried out by local political scientist Alexander Ilyin, who concluded that evidence of discreditation lay in Slabunova’s membership of an opposition party.

One protocol means a fine; two protocols can lead to a criminal case. The anti-war stance of Yabloko members makes them an easy target for opponents. “What, you don’t support the Special Military Operation? If you don’t support it, then say so!” Yury Shabanov, the governor’s representative in the Karelian parliament, shouted at Slabunova when she proposed using money allocated for military payments to repair public water pumps instead. The amendment, unsurprisingly, was rejected.

The second issue on which Yabloko fundamentally disagrees with the Russian state is repression. The party refuses to ignore the existence of political prisoners in Russia and refuses to forget the victims of Stalinist terror.

Again, Karelia provides an example. In the Medvezhyegorsky District lies the forest tract of Sandarmokh, where several thousand victims of Stalinist repression are buried. On 5 August — the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Great Terror — hundreds of people once gathered there. Officials organised transport from Petrozavodsk, while deputies and governors delivered speeches of remembrance. Today, officials no longer appear at Sandarmokh, but descendants of the repressed continue to visit, alongside members of Yabloko.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, provocations at Sandarmokh have become increasingly aggressive each year. In 2025, a supporter of the ultranationalist organisation Russian Community splashed water in the face of Dmitry Rybakov, a deputy of the Petrozavodsk City Council and Yabloko member. Police refused to open a case, claiming that the provocateur merely wanted to cool Rybakov down on a hot day.

"They show how afraid they are"

“We have arrived at a genuine dictatorship, and under a dictatorship there is no politics,” journalist Valery Potashov says of the situation surrounding Yabloko. Why is an opposition needed if it cannot push through a single initiative? Yet, on the other hand, if it is so powerless, why does the state feel compelled to suppress it so forcefully?

“Yes, it can seem like a barrel organ endlessly repeating problems that are never solved. But people see that they have not been forgotten. They watch the parliamentary sessions, listen to the speeches, and afterwards they say: ‘Thank you, you fought so hard for us. Thank you for speaking about our problem,’” says the anonymous politician from Karelia.

“The authorities like stepping on the same rake, tightening the lid on a pot that is already boiling over. Apparently, they poorly understand the laws by which excessive pressure eventually leads to an explosion…

To detain a respected woman as she leaves her home and drag her to a police station — these are, in essence, the actions of not very intelligent people. ‘Silence this woman immediately!’ — that is how they behave. But they are making a mistake: by showing how intolerable even a single dissenting voice is to them, they reveal how afraid they are.”

An entire section of Yabloko’s website is devoted to the persecution of the party’s activists, deputies and supporters, and is updated constantly. Ten party members have become defendants in various criminal cases, 11 Yabloko members have been designated foreign agents, and six members of the party have been killed.

At the beginning of May, party leader Nikolai Rybakov announced that a group of young Yabloko supporters in Yekaterinburg had decided to dissolve itself. “We understand their decision completely,” Rybakov said.