The leader of the Sverdlovsk Yabloko and a local scientist refused nomination to the State Duma after pressure from the security forces

Yabloko’s list for nomination to the State Duma did not include the leader of the party’s regional branch, Maxim Petlin, and physicist Gray Boltachev. The decision was made by the politicians themselves, and not by the party, the Yabloko press service told 7x7.

Regional group No. 19 for the Sverdlovsk region was headed by the only deputy from Yabloko in the Yekaterinburg City Duma, 62-year-old Konstantin Kiselev , group No. 20 - 67-year-old lawyer Vladimir Sobyanin .

In May 2025, Maxim Petlin was detained by security forces at an evening of letters to political prisoners; in April 2026, his home was searched. Emigrated activist of the Yekaterinburg “Yabloko” Yegor Tkachenko said that after the arrest the police offered him to inform on Petlin in order to take the post of head of the department.

In June 2026, a leading researcher at the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Gray Boltachev , was arrested for five days in the case of petty hooliganism (Article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). He connected this with plans to run for the State Duma and Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region from Yabloko.