AP —
A Russian court on Monday convicted a prominent opposition politician for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 11 years and one month in prison in the latest crackdown in the run-up to next month’s parliamentary elections.
The ruling against Yabloko party official Lev Schlossberg is another step by the Kremlin to stifle dissent since Russia invaded the neighboring country in February 2022. Yabloko is the only official political party that openly opposes the war.
In a separate ruling on Monday, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision to exclude Yabloko from voting in the Sept. 18-20 parliamentary vote, rejecting the party’s appeal.
The moves against Schlossberg and Yabloko highlight the Kremlin’s intolerance of criticism of the war, which is entering its fifth year.
Mr. Schlossberg, 63, is Yabloko’s deputy chairman and served as a member of the Pskov regional parliament from 2016 to 2021. He went on trial in the city of Pskov, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of Moscow, on charges of “discrediting” and spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
The charges stem from a debate in which he called for an end to the war and the front page of a British tabloid newspaper that featured an image of a bloodied woman next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, posted on his Telegram channel with the caption “Her blood…on his hands.” Mr. Schlossberg rejected the accusations as baseless.
This was Schlossberg’s second trial in the past two years. He has also been designated a “foreign agent,” which has strong pejorative connotations in Russia and brings further government scrutiny. He was found guilty of violating the Foreign Agents Regulations.
In December 2025, he was taken into pretrial detention on new charges and has been in prison ever since. He is one of several prominent Yabloko members who have been jailed or designated as “foreign spies” in recent years as the Kremlin ramps up pressure on the party.
In his final statement in court on Friday, Schlossberg said that for 30 years, Russia has been on a path “from the hope of freedom to the almost complete destruction of human and civil rights and freedoms.”
He said the war in Ukraine had “changed the lives of all Russian citizens without exception” and predicted that “the whole country would tremble” if the actual death toll was revealed.
Yabloko said Schlossberg had received a “barbaric sentence” for his “love of the motherland and call for a ceasefire.” In a statement to Telegram, the party said Schlossberg would appeal.
Amnesty International condemned the verdict against Schlossberg.
“His arbitrary prosecution and sentencing is blatant retaliation for exercising his right to freedom of expression in the pursuit of peace,” said Marie Struthers, the group’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
“Russian authorities must immediately release Lev Schlossberg unconditionally and revoke his conviction,” her statement added. “We must repeal laws that criminalize peaceful anti-war expression, end the persecution of Yabloko members and supporters, and respect the rights of all Russians to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and political participation.”
In Moscow, the Supreme Court upheld a week-old ruling that excluded Yabloko from the ballot in Russia’s lower house elections, rejecting the party’s appeal.
In July, the Central Election Commission had allowed Yabloko to vote, along with 10 other political parties. Since then, young social media users and many exiled Russian opposition leaders have expressed support for Yabloko and appealed to voters to support the party. The party was once a leading liberal voice in parliament, but later lost seats as the Kremlin tightened its grip on politics.
In recent years, Yabloko was the only registered opposition party to oppose Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Campaign slogans for this year’s elections included “ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and peace!” “Our goal is to prevent nuclear war!” and “For a Russia free from fear and political oppression!”
Several parties in the Kremlin publicly condemned Yabloko’s anti-war stance after he won the voting slot. The Fatherland Party filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to have Yabloko removed from the ballot, alleging copyright infringement and exceeding election spending limits. The party also deemed Yabloko’s stance on Ukraine illegal and tantamount to claiming a violation of Russia’s territorial integrity.
Mr. Yabloko rejected these charges, but the Supreme Court sided with the Fatherland Party.
Supporters of the party gathered outside the courthouse as Yabloko’s appeal opened on Monday, and Russian media reported that dozens of people had been detained.
Grigory Yavlinsky, a liberal politician who co-founded Yabloko in the 1990s and served as chairman of its political committee, regretted the court’s decision in an online statement. This, he said, shows “a deep and deepening crisis in Russia’s political system and a lack of understanding about the desired future.”
“People are starting to feel this more acutely, regardless of their political views and positions,” he said, adding that Yabloko’s “Peace and Freedom” campaign was hitting on this particular “pain point.”
Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov told reporters after the ruling that the party would continue its fight by filing a complaint with the Presidium of the Supreme Court and possibly the Constitutional Court.
“We have achieved something important. The whole world knows how many people in Russia want peace, want to live normally and raise their children in their own country under peaceful skies,” Rybakov said.
Commenting on the prison sentence handed down to Shlosberg, Rybakov said: “Our hearts go out to Lev and the other political prisoners who fought for peace so that people would not die.”
