Why is the Kremlin crushing the "Yabloko" party, even though it has long lost political influence? The case shows how they operate there: if a risk cannot be accurately calculated, they prefer to eliminate it in advance.
The deputy chairman of the only Russian opposition party "Yabloko" - Maxim Kruglov - was sentenced to seven years in a penal camp for two publications from three years ago related to Bucha and the civilians of Ukraine who died there. Moreover, the case is not just a politically motivated trial – It is another episode in the campaign against the party, which is gaining momentum as the elections approach.
The Kremlin wants to manage risks
The leadership and activists of “Yabloko“ are being persecuted in various regions - the party's events are being disrupted, criminal and administrative cases are being filed.
In the fall, another electoral event, which the Kremlin calls elections, will be held in Russia. Their outcome cannot but be predetermined: political competition has been destroyed, independent candidates are either in emigration or in prison - long deprived of the opportunity to participate in the elections. Against this background, the natural question arises: why does the Kremlin want to further destroy a party that has not played a noticeable role in federal politics for years? In my opinion, it is not about fear, but about an attempt to manage risks.
The Kremlin hardly considers “Yabloko“ for a political formation capable of seriously changing the balance of power. But Russian politics has long been based not on fair competition, but on maximum predictability. And if some risk cannot be calculated, Moscow prefers to eliminate it in advance.
How war fatigue affects
Today, no one can say for sure how Russian society will behave in four months. The war against Ukraine has been going on for more than four years. The fatigue from what is happening is becoming more and more noticeable even among people who have never considered themselves opposition. This does not mean at all that a mass anti-war movement will appear tomorrow. But it does mean that public sentiment is becoming less predictable than a year ago.
Probably, the presidential administration does not believe at all that “Yabloko“ can achieve serious results. But they seem to prefer not to check what will happen if the public demand for an end to the war becomes stronger than is generally believed. Any uncertainty becomes undesirable. Therefore, the task of the authorities today is to completely exclude everything unexpected.
The point is that by the start of the election campaign, there should be no hypothetical possibility of people appearing on the lists who are capable of turning the elections into politics, because even the small probability of this becomes a factor of uncertainty for the authorities. Therefore, the ever-increasing pressure on “Yabloko“ seems completely logical.
The time of hopes is long gone
"Yabloko“ is the oldest democratic party in modern Russia. Great hopes were attached to it in the 1990s. And then no less large-scale disappointments. The party gradually lost influence, disappeared from the State Duma, and received fewer and fewer votes in each subsequent election.
It was through “Yabloko“ that politicians passed through, who later became some of the prominent figures of the Russian democratic opposition. Alexei Navalny was expelled from the party in 2007. A year later, Ilya Yashin suffered the same fate. The irony of history is that the brightest politicians, educated at the time by “Yabloko“, turned out to be very inconvenient for the party itself.
The only party that is against the war
Today “Yabloko“ remains the only registered Russian party that consistently declares itself against the war – There is simply no other registered party with an anti-war stance.
For now, it is impossible to say whether the complete “erasure“ of “Yabloko“ will be possible. Formally, the party still has a chance to participate in the elections, and one of its candidates may even reach the final round. But the events of recent months do not allow us to be particularly optimistic about these prospects.
The verdict of Maxim Kruglov speaks not so much about the fate of a politician or even a party. It shows what Russian politics should be in the Kremlin's vision - completely predictable. Even if in the name of this predictability it is necessary to send people from a party that has long since stopped claiming power to a colony, it at least reminds us that legal democratic politics once existed in Russia.
This text expresses the opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Gazette as a whole.