No criminal case against Nikolai Rybakov was opened by 9 October 2026: Yabloko's own news page reports only that a St Petersburg court fined him 1,000 rubles on 9 October, an administrative penalty the rule excludes, and no Al Jazeera, Reuters or BBC report of a criminal case was found.
Resolves YES if by 23:59 Moscow time on 9 Oct 2026 the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General's Office or a Russian court publicly records a criminal case under the Criminal Code naming Nikolai Rybakov as a suspect or defendant, or Yabloko announces on yabloko.ru that such a case has been opened. Administrative Code fines or detention (for example under Article 20.3) do not count. If the primary sources are silent, a report by at least two of Al Jazeera, Reuters and BBC News that a criminal case has been opened resolves YES; otherwise NO.
We looked for times when a court or an election commission removed a registered opposition party from a national ballot. We started with Russia, then looked at countries run in a similar way: Belarus, Cambodia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Tanzania, from 2007 to 2026. We found nine cases. Eight are shown here.