It's been no secret that Russian authorities have increasingly cracked down on public speech which opposes the war in Ukraine, or as the Kremlin calls it - the special military operation. Any speech deemed 'unpatriotic' has also come under a legal microscope of late.
Currently, Yabloko (Apple) is the only officially registered Russian political party which openly oppose the war, calling "for peace and freedom". But the party has just suffered a huge setback, having been banned by the nation's top court from running candidates in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Russia's Supreme Court on Monday "upheld a suit brought by a pro-Kremlin nationalist party, stripping voters opposed to the four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine of their last option on the ballot," France24 reports.
"The claims seeking to annul the registration of the federal list of candidates for the State Duma of the ninth convocation, nominated by the Yabloko political party, were granted," the ruling by judge Vyacheslav Kirillov indicated.
Some one hundred mostly young supporters of Yabloko demonstrated outside the courthouse chanting "Shame! Shame!" following the ruling. Yabloko leader Nikolay Rybakov has affirmed that the party is planning to appeal the decision.
The rationale for the ban is that the anti-war party is accused of receiving foreign funds; however, it has countered by saying rival political parties have also received such funding:
According to data from Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), the Yabloko party had received funding from abroad, a Central Election Commission (CEC) representative said. The representative spoke during a court hearing on a lawsuit the Rodina party filed seeking to remove Yabloko from the State Duma election.
On Aug. 7, Rosfinmonitoring gave the commission a document stating that individuals on Yabloko’s federal candidate list had received foreign funding, the CEC representative said.
Several dozen of the party’s counterparties had also received this funding, according to Rosfinmonitoring.
Anti-Kremlin regional outlet Meduza has published the following from Yabloko party concerning its legal hot water situation:
Yabloko has attributed the foreign funding data to the sale of foreign shares, which the law requires candidates to sell off ahead of elections, the Telegram channel Varlamov News reports. Yabloko lawyer Gadzhi Aliev said the funds did not come to the party itself from foreign individuals, but from Russian citizens who had received money from foreign sources.
Russia has long been fearful over foreign entities making inroads into Russian society, a concern which stretches to well before the war started.
It also worries that US and European intelligence could seek to manipulate parliamentary elections. In America, Democrats had starting long ago charged Moscow with interfering in US elections, which produced years of 'Russiagate' hanging over President Trump - yet with nothing close to a smoking gun.
Regarding the brutal war in Eastern Europe, common Russian families have continued to struggle and suffer quietly because of the conflict as more and more young men are killed in the fighting. On the other side of it, Ukrainian families are also suffering immensely - and tragically there seems no end in sight as peace talks have proven illusive.