You can call it fear, or you can call it risk mitigation"

"You can call it fear, or you can call it risk mitigation"

The cancellation of the registration of Yabloko, the only party openly expressing an anti-war position, caused outrage among many Russians inside the country and abroad. However, Meduza’s sources close to the presidential administration say that “Yabloko’s fate could not have turned out any other way.”

According to a political strategist working with the presidential administration, the political bloc wanted to use the party’s registration with the Central Election Commission to test “what would happen if Yabloko started campaigning.” The presidential administration also assumed that an anti-war party might siphon off situational voters from the CPRF, people who vote for the Communist Party as a form of protest.

But [Yabloko’s] rating started to go up, and the party was removed. You can call it fear, or you can call it risk mitigation. Even an extra two or three percent can break United Russia’s KPI and the distribution of seats in the end. If that is predictable and if it can be prevented, then anyone would do it.

After Yabloko was removed from the election, special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke with sources close to the authorities. How was the situation around the party discussed “behind the scenes”?

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