Russia's Supreme Court on August 10 upheld a lawsuit by the nationalist Rodina party to remove the liberal Yabloko party from the State Duma election ballot. The hearing lasted about ten hours, and judge Vyacheslav Kirillov took about an hour to reach his decision. The ruling can be appealed within five days.
The plaintiff, Rodina chairman Alexei Zhuravlev, called Yabloko "national traitors" and alleged mass violations: exceeding campaign spending limits, campaigning through foreign agents and from abroad, and copyright infringement. Specifically, the claims concerned the use of the phrases "May there always be sunshine" and "If only there were no war" in interviews with Grigory Yavlinsky, as well as photographs of Dmitry Medvedev and Victoria Bonya. The descendants of the creators of the song "May there always be sunshine" told the court they had no complaints against the party.
Representatives of the Central Election Commission pointed to possible overspending of campaign finance limits and cited a document from Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's financial watchdog, according to which 72 party donors received money from India, Georgia, and Germany between April and July. Yabloko responded that these were transfers in rubles from Russians living abroad. A prosecutor's representative said there were "grounds" to uphold the lawsuit due to copyright violations and financial irregularities.
Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov said after the ruling that the authorities "support those people who are leading the country to catastrophe," and promised to file an appeal. Grigory Yavlinsky called the party's removal from the election "a self-exposure of the political system": "It is obvious that the demand for peace and freedom today turned out to be significantly stronger than the authorities assumed." He also said that "this is not about the fate of Yabloko — this is about the fate of Russia."
Yulia Navalnaya said that "the Kremlin got scared": "They saw what they really did not want to see: people are beginning to unite." According to her, the authorities had a plan to let Yabloko into the election, show a result of 2%, and say: "That's it. That's how many of you there are." She urged people to come to the polls and vote by party lists "for any party except United Russia." Leonid Volkov made a similar call, saying Yabloko was removed "lawlessly."
The bureau of the Peaceful Russia party expressed solidarity with Yabloko and said the removal decision "in reality was made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, not by the judge controlled by him." It also said that "the cleansing of the pre-election field reflects the growing public discontent in Russia with the ongoing war."
Sources differ: according to Novaya Gazeta Europe, about 500 people gathered outside the courthouse, and after the ruling was announced they chanted "Shame!" The Supreme Court's decision can be appealed within five days; Yabloko has said it intends to file an appeal.