Sergei Mironov, leader of the A Just Russia party, has filed requests with the Prosecutor General's Office and the Justice Ministry asking them to investigate the Yabloko party, accusing its members of having "repeatedly shown themselves to be covert and overt traitors to the Motherland" and of having "consistently surrendered and sold our Motherland to the West."
Mironov noted that on February 24, 2022, Yabloko's leadership called Russia's invasion of Ukraine "a most grave crime," and that the party is now running on an anti-war platform. "The result: a party that openly opposes the special military operation, promises to conclude a shameful peace for the country, and supports foreign agents is going to the State Duma," the politician wrote on his Telegram channel.
In response, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov said the party "stands exclusively for a peaceful future, for people not killing each other, for living in Russia without fear." He also reminded Mironov that he had posed for a photo with a sledgehammer given by Yevgeny Prigozhin, adding that after that, his attitude toward the value of human life "became finally and publicly clear."
Mironov's statement came on the day of the drawing that assigned Yabloko the second spot on the State Duma ballot, right after United Russia. A Just Russia took sixth place. Earlier, the Central Election Commission registered Yabloko's list; the party is the only one among those running that calls for ending the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In addition to Mironov's request, the party has faced other pressures. Alexei Zhuravlev, leader of the Rodina party, accused Yabloko of running its campaign on "Western money" and of trying to "discredit" the elections. Yabloko's website was hit by DDoS attacks twice on August 3, and nearly 40,000 new accounts subscribed to the party's Telegram channel in a single day, which the party called a mass bot inflation.
Yabloko believes the attacks and the bot inflation are linked to the party's growing support: shortly before, its Telegram channel overtook United Russia's channel in subscriber count. "Neither DDoS attacks nor bot inflation will change the main thing: people keep coming to us, supporting us, and standing for peace and freedom," the party said.