Russia’s Central Election Commission said Monday that it uncovered evidence indicating that candidates from the liberal Yabloko party received funding from abroad.
The allegations surfaced during a high-stakes Supreme Court hearing on a lawsuit filed by the small nationalist Rodina party, which is seeking to disqualify Yabloko from next month’s State Duma elections.
Election officials told the court that data provided by Russia’s financial watchdog, Rosfinmonitoring, revealed foreign financial transfers to several Yabloko candidates in 2025, the newspaper Kommersant reported.
Because the Rosfinmonitoring document was classified “for official use only,” judges briefly adjourned the hearing to require non-disclosure agreements from Yabloko’s legal defense team before permitting them to review the evidence.
Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov rejected the allegations that his party received funding from abroad.
“We’re being funded by Russian citizens, and we answer to Russian citizens, as well as the Central Election Commission,” Rybakov told the Supreme Court.
Rodina has also accused Yabloko of copyright infringement and “extremism.” State prosecutors said Monday that they support the lawsuit against the party.
The legal push to remove Yabloko from the ballot comes after the Central Election Commission last month unexpectedly approved more than 400 candidates from the party to run in September’s parliamentary elections.
Yabloko, Russia’s oldest liberal political party, remains the only officially registered 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.
