Yabloko candidate campaigns for peace vote as Russia holds parliamentary election

Moscow, Russia. Polina Lermant, a 24-year-old candidate for Russia’s liberal Yabloko party, is campaigning for voters to “vote for peace” in a parliamentary election beginning on Friday, despite fears that authorities could accuse her of wrongdoing and imprison her.

A digital billboard behind Lermant during her campaign displayed an advertisement urging Russians to enlist to fight in Ukraine. She is among about a dozen Yabloko candidates running in Moscow in the three-day election for the 450-seat State Duma.

Fear of repression

Lermant told Reuters that she and her family feared an escalation of repression against her for campaigning against the war.

“I’m really afraid. My parents and my husband are really worried about me. I am afraid that the repression will start,” she said.

Yabloko is the only registered political force within Russia to oppose the war in Ukraine. Some of its members have been jailed over comments about the conflict.

Senior party member Lev Shlosberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison last month over comments about the war, while Yabloko deputy leader Maxim Kruglov received a seven-year prison sentence on similar charges in June.

Lermant said her great-grandfather had been exiled from Moscow to the Ural Mountains during the Soviet era after being convicted of discrediting the Red Army. She noted that the charge is now used against critics of Russia’s modern military.

“It’s really terrifying that 90 years later people in Russia are still afraid that they will be jailed or that something will be done to them,” she said, referring to the narrowing space for public dissent.

Election and war policy

The State Duma has a record of approving Kremlin initiatives. The election is the first parliamentary vote since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.

Yabloko is calling for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Kremlin has ruled out a ceasefire, saying it wants a broader agreement that meets its conditions.

The Kremlin says wartime censorship and national unity are necessary because of what it describes as increasingly dangerous attempts by Ukraine’s intelligence services and other enemies to foment unrest inside Russia.

Authorities are expected to use the election to assess the extent of public weariness over the war as the economy faces pressure from fuel shortages linked to Ukrainian drone strikes, high interest rates, labour shortages and Western sanctions.