More than 1,300 people registered to attend the meeting with supporters, according to the party's press service. Video of the event was published by the Telegram channel Varlamov News.
The question about how he viewed the proposals by Navalnaya and Kats was posed by one of those present, and the hall met it with applause. "You applauded the fact that you are calling on me to commit a human baseness and to commit it yourselves," Rybakov replied.
According to him, the authorities are sending his comrades to prison for 11 years, while supporters of the plan propose backing them in the elections. Rybakov said that "votes for systemic parties are votes for jailing and killing Yabloko members," the Telegram channel SOTAvision reported.
"You propose going again, like little sheep, to their pipe, and voting for those people who led to the deaths of people in Russia and in Ukraine," the Yabloko leader said. Responsibility for that, in his view, "will not be on them, but on your hands." "Yes, only they are abroad, and we are here. We are telling you that this is how it will be. It ends in the deaths of people and prison terms! They sit abroad and manipulate you!" Rybakov concluded.
Yabloko is offering its own "Plan B": voting for the party's candidates in single-mandate districts where they are running, and spoiling the ballot in the party-list vote.
Maxim Kats responded to Rybakov's remarks. "Nikolai Rybakov and the Yabloko party are right now in Russia under very significant pressure and at the same time continue their political activity. That is brave and very important," he wrote.
Kats specified that he had not discussed his project with Rybakov or anyone from the party, since such contacts could expose them to greater risk. According to him, the proposed single alternative list includes 85 candidates from Yabloko. "Our position on voting by party lists differs. I do not think that spoiling the ballot is a good idea, but it happens that positions differ, and there is nothing terrible about that," Kats said.
Earlier, Navalnaya and Kats presented a website with a list of candidates for each district. For the party-list vote, they advise choosing any systemic party that clears the 5 percent threshold in order to reduce United Russia's final share. Kats notes that he himself chooses New People as the only party on the ballot that does not have "the letter Z right on its forehead."