“An extra hostage is what matters to them.” Lev Shlosberg arrested

On December 5, the Pskov city court sent the deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, Pskov politician Lev Shlosberg, to a pre-trial detention center. A criminal case was opened against him for so-called “fakes about the army.” A criminal case for reposting on a telegram channel was opened on December 3 – a few days before the politician’s house arrest expired in another case – about repeated “discrediting the army”, and a month after the verdict regarding non-compliance with foreign agency legislation. The politician did not admit his guilt in these criminal cases. Two months earlier, another deputy chairman of Yabloko, Maxim Kruglov, was sent under arrest for fakes about the army. According to experts, the arrests began because the Kremlin decided not to allow the party to participate in the State Duma elections.

Lev Shlosberg did not admit his guilt. “Friends, don’t lose heart. Freedom is within us. I love you,” Schlosberg said after the verdict was announced. He was sent to pre-trial detention until February 2.

The reason for initiating another criminal case against the Pskov politician was his repost of the publication in the telegram channel, made back in February 2022. Despite the fact that the article on “fakes”, in principle, appeared in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation only in March 2022.

“We are confident that the prosecution of Lev Shlosberg is connected exclusively with his many years of social and political activity, consistent protection of the rights of citizens and the principles of the rule of law. The actions he is accused of cannot be grounds for depriving a person of his freedom,” said Yabloko head Nikolai Rybakov.

“War criminals sent Lev Shlosberg to prison because he told the truth about their crimes. Already two deputy chairmen of Yabloko are under arrest for their anti-war position. Leo: solidarity, respect and support. To family and friends - strength and endurance. The darkness is not eternal. The day will come when those who started this war, and not those who tried to stop it, will be in prison,” wrote politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.

– Leo is persecuted for his opinion. Opinion is not prohibited in the Russian Federation; it is written in the Constitution. He didn't break any laws. And what is happening now is a monstrous injustice,” the politician’s wife Zhanna Shlosberg told the Okno correspondent.

– I understand that now it is important for the authorities to remove it from the Internet. But this could have been achieved with house arrest. Why did the article about fakes appear? Well, just because they can. An extra hostage is what matters to them. They can now decide how much he sleeps, what he eats, when to get up, who to see, who not to see. This is the deepest pleasure for the guards,” says Denis Kamalyagin, editor of the Pskov Province newspaper.

According to Kamalyagin, the conditions in the Pskov pre-trial detention center are “terrible.”

– The pre-trial detention center in Pskov is a historical monument from 1804, a disgusting place with terrible conditions. A bunch of people I know have already spent time there. Of the 30 cells, there are several exhibition cells where all inspectors are taken. All the others are disgusting. It won’t be easy for a middle-aged person there,” says the journalist.

“Why did it take so long for Schlosberg to be arrested?”

The new criminal case is the third filed against the politician since October 2024, as noted in the Pskov Yabloko.

The most recent criminal case – about fakes – appeared on December 3. Schlosberg at this time was serving the last days of his six-month house arrest on charges of repeatedly discrediting the army. He was put under arrest after a recording of his debate with historian Yuri Pivovarov appeared on Odnoklassniki. In the debate, Schlosberg defended the position of the need for an early ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

“My position is that the greatest threat to the future of the world lies in the very fact of the continuation of hostilities with terrible losses among both military and civilians in the center of Europe. This is the center of a future world war. If a formula for political compromise is not found now, we will face a world war,” Schlosberg said in the debate.

Five months after the debate, police officers came to Schlosberg, conducted a search and seized all the equipment. They searched both the office of the Pskov “Yabloko” and the apartment of his 96-year-old father, Mark Shlosberg. The politician himself was first detained and then sent under house arrest.

– He has been under house arrest since June 6. A person was deprived of freedom and communication, it was difficult. It was possible to go only to the investigator and to trials,” says Zhanna Shlosberg.

In October, a new charge was brought against the politician - for failure to fulfill the duties of a “foreign agent”: his video on Vkontakte did not have a foreign agent sign. On November 5, Judge Elena Smirnova found Schlosberg guilty and sentenced him to 420 hours of compulsory labor. By decision of the Russian Ministry of Justice, he was declared a so-called “foreign agent” on June 16, 2023.

In October 2025, the deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, former Moscow City Duma deputy Maxim Kruglov, was arrested for two months. He was also charged with spreading so-called fakes about the army.

The reason for Kruglov’s arrest was two posts in his telegram channel from 2022, one of which talked about UN data on the number of dead Ukrainian civilians, and the second about Butch, his lawyer said. Kruglov, like Schlosberg, did not admit his guilt. According to him, he does not understand why law enforcement officers raised questions about the posts only three and a half years after their publication.

Today, eleven members of the Yabloko party are recognized as “foreign agents,” said the head of the party, Nikolai Rybakov. Twelve criminal cases have been initiated against nine members of the party, six people have been imprisoned. 58 administrative fines were imposed, including 36 for “discrediting the army.” 29 people were detained. Searches were carried out at 34 people, as well as at five regional offices. 13 party members and two regional organizations have their social networks blocked.

Yabloko’s problems are related to the upcoming State Duma elections in 2026 - the Kremlin cannot allow candidates with an openly anti-war position to participate in them, says political scientist Abbas Gallyamov:

– There is really a fear that too many people will vote for the anti-war party. And if an anti-war candidate or party appears in the elections, the elections will turn into a referendum on the question of whether we want war or peace. And in this situation, both Vladimir Putin and United Russia will suffer a crushing defeat. Therefore, a strategic decision was made that Yabloko should not be on the ballot. And the corresponding basis is summed up for this: “Yabloko” is a gathering of foreign agents, violators of the law, slanderers of the Russian army. Why did it take so long for Schlosberg to be arrested? It was a long time before the elections. Yabloko members did not come out with an anti-war position and did not organize protests. And that’s it, the elections are approaching, we need to solve the problem.

Shlosberg’s arrest is part of a larger campaign against Yabloko, agrees politician Andrei Pivovarov:

“The obvious goal is to prevent not only participation in the elections, but even the election campaign of Yabloko.” Or maybe we will see the closure of the party. We see Kruglov, who is in a pre-trial detention center, we see Shlosberg, we see Rybakov and Shtannikova being deprived of the opportunity to be elected. That's what they're trying to do, apparently. force Grigory Yavlinsky to either close the party or withdraw from these elections altogether. I don’t know what decision he will make, but I think any will be correct. It’s convenient to advise from here, from the cozy safety of Berlin, but the person’s close associates are being imprisoned, and they obviously won’t stop.

"They're not there"

62-year-old Lev Shlosberg is known far beyond his native Pskov. He is a historian by training, a journalist and a former MP. For many years he was the permanent leader of the Pskov Yabloko, but after receiving the status of a “foreign agent” he left his posts in the regional branch. Today Shlosberg is deputy chairman of the Yabloko party.

He was first elected to the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies in 2011 at the head of the party list. In 2012, he harshly criticized the so-called Dima Yakovlev law, limiting the adoption of Russian children by foreigners. “This law is cannibalistic, flesh-eating, unscrupulous and vile. And today the Pskov meeting of deputies was invited to join this meanness and subscribe to this meanness,” said Shlosberg. Then the video of his speech was viewed on YouTube by almost 150 thousand users.

In 2014, Schlosberg spoke out against the annexation of Crimea and political repression. Then he was the director of the newspaper “Pskov Province”. On August 25, 2014, the publication was the first to publish photographs of the graves of Russian soldiers killed in Donbass, at which time President Vladimir Putin claimed that “there are no Russian troops in Ukraine.” Journalists discovered two fresh graves in the Pskov cemetery - contract soldiers of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division Leonid Kichatkin and Alexander Osipov. At the same time, a series of articles was published about the participation of the Russian army in the military conflict in Donbass. After this, the newspaper's journalists began to receive threats, and Schlosberg himself was attacked on August 29 by three unknown men. Lev Shlosberg was hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury, temporary amnesia, a broken nose, and multiple bruises.

“I remember how, approaching the house, I told Zhanna that I would be home soon. And then I don’t remember anything,” the politician said in an interview with Katerina Gordeeva.

“Literally 20 minutes later there was a call from his phone, he began to say something incoherent. Then a man picked up the phone and said that Lev had been attacked,” his wife Zhanna recalled in an interview.

Later, the investigation released the suspects in the attack.

– In Pskov, everyone heard from their friends that they really sent paratroopers there, to Ukraine. But this was at the level of rumors. And the Pskov paratroopers could indeed be passed off as Donetsk militias, which is what the Kremlin was counting on. But Schlosberg prevented them from doing this. For which he was beaten, and subsequently he was deprived of his mandate,” says the founder of the anti-war movement “Free Buryatia” Alexandra Garmazhapova.

A year later, Shlosberg was deprived of his deputy mandate at the Pskov Regional Assembly under a far-fetched pretext. Alexandra was present.

“And it was, of course, an ugly scene.” I remember how United Russia deputy Alexei Sevastyanov shouted that Schlosberg had stepped over the sacred by telling the world about Russia’s losses in the war in Ukraine. He claimed that Schlosberg received information about the losses from the State Department. And at the same time, when journalists asked him during a break whether the Pskov division was suffering losses in Ukraine, Sevastyanov assured that soldiers were dying in exercises. And he doesn’t know what kind of exercises are so deadly, since he doesn’t work for the Ministry of Defense,” recalls Garmazhapova.

She believes that today’s arrest of Schlosberg is revenge on the part of the authorities for the fact that he was the first to confirm the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

A year after being deprived of his mandate, Lev Shlosberg was again elected to the regional Assembly of Deputies. But in 2021, he was not allowed to participate in the elections in the Pskov region, accusing him of having connections with the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Lev Shlosberg has openly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the first days of the war. However, his statements do not always fit into the anti-war agenda of the Russian opposition.

Schlosberg’s interview given to Ksenia Sobchak in the fall of 2024 caused a particular resonance. In it, he called for a cessation of hostilities and stated that Ukraine is de facto not a victim in the Russian-Ukrainian war, since it is resisting.

“He who resists is not a victim. The victim does not resist. The victim allows himself to be killed. The myth that Ukraine remains a victim does not correspond to historical facts. If Ukraine were a victim, Ukraine would no longer exist now,” the politician said, after which he was sharply criticized in Ukraine, as well as by many Russian oppositionists.

In response to this criticism, Shlosberg stated that politicians and public figures who left Russia, such as Garry Kasparov, Sergei Parkhomenko and Dmitry Bykov, “lost their people” and, by calling for the continuation of the conflict, are supporters of the “party of someone else’s blood.”

“They recognize only the dead on the one hand as victims, and they mock the dead on the other hand. For them, human blood is of different political colors. The blood of one people can be the blood of victims for them, but not another. This is Nazism, ” said the politician.

"This is the decision of a strong man"

Today, Schlosberg is one of the few well-known Russian politicians who, while criticizing the Kremlin’s policies, refuses to leave Russia. He himself stated this several times in his interviews. According to Zhanna Schlosberg, her husband’s position has not changed, despite three criminal cases over the past year. She says she never asked her husband to leave, respecting his views.

But Schlosberg's 96-year-old father asked his son to leave.

“From the very beginning, Mark Naumovich said: “Levka, leave, they will put you in jail.” Shlosberg would not have abandoned his father by leaving; his sister remains in Pskov,” says Kamalyagin. “But Lev at some point took the position that those who left cannot politically influence Russian processes. And after that he could no longer leave. Maybe now they want to push him out, like Yashin, so that he ends up with those whom he himself attacked. But I will be satisfied with this result - that the person will not sit.

Leaving the country is a difficult decision, especially for a politician, says Andrei Pivovarov:

– For many politicians, being in Russia is fundamentally important, because your voice within the country is much more significant and resonant than when you speak from abroad. You may not agree with Schlosberg's decision, but you should respect it. This is the decision of a strong man. We need to support him and the democratic forces that remain in the country. And now we often hear snobbery and arrogance from those who left. From the comfort of their home abroad, they demand that Russians be more radical. I may not agree with Schlosberg in many ways, but, of course, he is our comrade, our like-minded person, who is at the forefront of the struggle. And only scum can criticize him.

Shlosberg may be on the list for the exchange of political prisoners if such an exchange takes place, Garmazhapova believes. Last August, during a big exchange, Andrei Pivovarov, Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and others were released.

– I think there is a possibility of an exchange. But now the list of political prisoners is so huge and there are so many different people on it that it is difficult to discuss specific personalities here.

– Today we are trying to discuss with European politicians, we are trying to ensure that clauses on the exchange or release of political prisoners are included in any draft peace agreements. And I really want to believe that this will work, but so far there are no such signs,” says Pivovarov. – I accepted with optimism the appeal prepared by Dmitry Muratov on behalf of the Nobel laureates. And maybe, through Trump, through the United States, it will be possible to insert this clause about the exchange of political prisoners into the agreement. Will it happen? For now, to be honest, I would count more on some kind of political decision within the country. Still, Yavlinsky is a man with 40 years of experience in politics, he is able to speak directly with Putin. And I think that the issue of Schlosberg’s release can be resolved in this way.