Russia's Supreme Court began hearing a lawsuit on Monday seeking to remove the liberal Yabloko party from the State Duma ballot. The hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. but started with a slight delay, at around 10:30 a.m.
The suit was filed on Friday by the nationalist Rodina party. Its chairman, Alexei Zhuravlev, called Yabloko "national traitors" and "people who work for the West." The lawsuit alleges that Yabloko's campaign spending exceeded the legal limits of its electoral fund, and that materials supporting the party were distributed by "foreign agents" and through foreign social networks with payments made outside the electoral fund.
Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov had urged supporters to come to the court ahead of the hearing. According to the party's count, around 500 people gathered in line, with more continuing to arrive. The Telegram channel "Slovo zashchite" reported that a police van had arrived at the courthouse.
Rybakov said the plaintiffs' main argument was the support Yabloko received from its backers on social media. According to him, the lawsuit's authors believe that 88 million rubles were paid for this support over the past 10 days, and they estimated the total reach at 527 million users — "roughly four and a half times more than the total number of voters in Russia."
Kirill Goncharov, chairman of Moscow's Yabloko branch, said the lawsuit was "political and ideological in nature," since the authorities dislike the party's rising ratings and the involvement of young people in the electoral process.
Earlier, Yabloko said it was filing a defamation suit against Zhuravlev. The party also stated it was not connected to a campaign in its support launched by politicians, journalists and human rights activists based outside Russia. The campaign was backed by Andrei Pivovarov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Oleg Orlov, Dmitry Bykov and Kirill Martynov. Yulia Navalnaya also publicly supported Yabloko.
The case is being heard by Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov, who in April ruled to declare the International Memorial Society an extremist organization, and in August 2023 rejected Alexei Navalny's lawsuit seeking to ban the use of prison slang.