The nationalist Rodina party has filed a lawsuit with Russia’s Supreme Court seeking to disqualify the liberal Yabloko party from upcoming State Duma elections, Rodina leader Alexei Zhuravlyov announced Friday.
“The Yabloko party are national traitors. These are people who work for the West and hold Western values,” Zhuravlyov told reporters outside the Supreme Court building. Without providing evidence, Zhuravlyov claimed his party had uncovered financial violations by Yabloko.
In response, Yabloko threatened to sue Zhuravlyov, who serves in the State Duma as a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, for defamation over his remarks.
Russia’s Supreme Court confirmed receiving Rodina’s disqualification filing earlier on Friday.
The legal action follows a public clash between Zhuravlyov and Yabloko chairman Nikolay Rybakov during a Central Election Commission meeting last week.
Election authorities have approved more than 400 candidates from Yabloko, Russia’s oldest liberal political party, to run in September’s parliamentary elections on a pro-peace platform. Rodina is also among 11 other parties cleared to contest seats in the lower house.
Yabloko remains the only officially registered political party running on a pro-peace platform amid a broader crackdown on dissent. Russian authorities have jailed several prominent Yabloko members in recent years over their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine.
Several exiled opposition figures — including Yulia Navalnaya and Vladimir Kara-Murza — have publicly endorsed Yabloko. However, Rybakov has sought to distance himself and the party from the exiled dissidents.
“Their support could get our party kicked off the ballot under the current rules,” Rybakov wrote Thursday on Telegram, referencing Kremlin restrictions targeting anti-war figures.
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