Kremlin sources: Yabloko's Duma registration was an experiment, scrapped once its ratings rose
Russia's Supreme Court struck the liberal Yabloko party from the State Duma ballot after a complaint from Kremlin-aligned party Rodina. Sources close to the Presidential Administration told Meduza the registration had been a deliberate test that was abandoned once Yabloko's poll numbers began climbing.
On July 29, Russia's Central Election Commission registered the liberal Yabloko party for State Duma elections. On August 7, the Kremlin-loyal Rodina party filed suit with the Supreme Court to overturn that decision, accusing Yabloko of copyright violations, hidden foreign funding, and "signs of extremism" in its slogan "For Peace and Freedom!" Yabloko denied the accusations, but on August 10 the Supreme Court struck its candidate list from the election.
Rodina, a nationalist, populist party founded in 2003, is closely aligned with the Kremlin. Its chairman, Alexey Zhuravlyov, is under sanctions from the EU, the US, and other countries for supporting Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Registration as a test run
Sources close to Russia's Presidential Administration had told Meduza as early as fall 2025 that Yabloko was unlikely to be allowed to run in a federal election while campaigning under an antiwar slogan. Sergey Kiriyenko's political bloc initially planned to run the Duma campaign on a "conservative scenario" with a controlled field of participants, similar to the 2024 presidential election, when no liberal opposition candidate took part.
Nevertheless, in July 2026 Yabloko was not only registered but given the second slot on the ballot. Sources say the decision reflected a wish to please Vladimir Putin, who respects "old" parties, as well as a desire to test how a Yabloko campaign would play out and whether it might siphon protest voters away from Russia's Communist Party.
Rising popularity, then removal
In late July and early August, numerous pro-Yabloko videos appeared on TikTok and Instagram, drawing hundreds of thousands to millions of views, with engagement up 4.5-fold. On August 10, roughly 500 people gathered outside the Supreme Court in Moscow in support of the party. A political strategist close to the Kremlin told Meduza that Yabloko's rising ratings threatened United Russia's results, so the party was removed through the courts rather than directly by the Central Election Commission, to preserve the commission's standing.
Another source said Yabloko had become an "amplifier" for the exiled opposition's voice, which should not be heard. Separately, the Presidential Administration is also considering scaling back the New People party's visibility, since its support in several regions exceeds planned targets.
