Russia’s sole anti-war party targets coming elections, favours ceasefire

Yabloko is unlikely to win any seats. A poll conducted earlier this year showed it at just three per cent support – short of the five-per cent threshold needed to enter Russia’s lower house State Duma.

But the party believes the campaign is helping to widen its support base, particularly among young people usually apathetic towards politics, and it has relished the opportunity to push its anti-war message on a national scale.

“If we can bring peace even a single day closer, then our participation in all of this will not have been in vain,” party leader Nikolay Rybakov said.

Founded in 1993 by a group of pro-Western public officials, Yabloko enjoyed relative success in the years following the post-Soviet collapse. Since 2003, however, it has failed to win seats in the State Duma.