Yabloko
야블로코
A social-liberal Russian party that grew out of the electoral bloc formed for the 1993 elections by Grigory Yavlinsky with Yury Boldyrev and Vladimir Lukin. The name is an acronym of the three founders' surnames and means 'apple' in Russian. It became a political party in 2001 and was the only registered party to oppose the war in Ukraine openly.
In depth
Yabloko's immediate predecessor was the Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin bloc formed for the 1993 elections, which included the Republican and Social Democratic parties and the Russian Christian Democratic Union. The bloc won 7.86% in 1993 and formed a faction in the State Duma; in January 1995 it became a public association with Yavlinsky at the head of its central council. Throughout Yeltsin's presidency it acted as the 'democratic opposition', opposing Chubais's privatisation, and in May 1999 it voted to impeach Yeltsin over the war in Chechnya.
In December 2001 the party was formally created from the Yabloko public association and the Party of Social Liberalism, and in March 2002 it became a full member of the Liberal International. After failing to clear the 5% threshold in the 2003 election it won no more list seats in the Duma. In 2006 Green Russia and the Soldiers' Mothers joined and the name became the Russian United Democratic Party 'Yabloko'; Alexei Yablokov, who had founded Green Russia, led that faction inside the party. Sergey Mitrokhin succeeded Yavlinsky as chairman in 2008.
The party opposed Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and took part in protests, and its members faced criminal charges, administrative arrests, searches and fines. In 2026 the deputy chairmen Maksim Kruglov and Lev Shlosberg were sentenced to prison under the war censorship laws, and on 10 August 2026 the Supreme Court, acting on a suit by Rodina, annulled the party's registration, barring it from the 2026 legislative election.