In a column for Der Spiegel, journalist Mikhail Zygar reported that the final decision to remove the Yabloko party from the election list was made personally by Vladimir Putin. According to Zygar, the removal was advocated by Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the presidential administration, and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Zygar's sources familiar with the Kremlin's discussions on the matter said that Kiriyenko and the FSB's motives may have differed, but the result was the same: keeping Yabloko on the ballot was now seen as too great a risk.
Initially, the country's leadership did not consider Yabloko a threat and allowed the Central Election Commission to register its federal list of candidates. However, the party, which advocates a swift end to the war with Ukraine, began receiving support from journalists and opposition politicians, including those declared "foreign agents" or "extremists" in Russia.
Zygar writes that within a few weeks, a legal anti-war campaign could have unfolded across Russia: candidates could meet voters, volunteers could distribute campaign materials, and people could publicly declare support for the party. Yabloko, in his view, became less a contender for political power than a barometer of public sentiment.
"Photographs of queues, crowded events, the number of volunteers, and results from individual polling stations could have answered the question the Kremlin has tried to avoid for four and a half years: how many Russians actually want this war to end?" Zygar writes in the column.
Until the summer of 2026, the Kremlin considered the party "controlled," but in conditions of nearly vanished public politics, even controlled figures can become mouthpieces for public discontent, the journalist notes.
The Supreme Court of Russia removed Yabloko from the State Duma election on August 10. The formal reason was a lawsuit by the Rodina party, which claimed that Yabloko violated copyright in its campaign materials and used "extremist" slogans.