The Russian state is turning disagreement with the war ever more openly into a criminal offense. Maxim Kruglov, deputy chairman of the Yabloko party and a former member of the Moscow city legislature, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for social media posts about the Russian army and the war against Ukraine.
Formally, the verdict was issued for spreading “false information” about the armed forces. Politically, it means far more: in Russia, even systemic, legal and cautious opposition no longer has any guarantee of safety if it touches the central taboo — the state’s responsibility for the war.
Kruglov is 39. He was detained in the autumn of 2025, while the case concerned posts from 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One post referred to events in Bucha; another to data on war casualties. Kruglov pleaded not guilty.
According to Daycom’s earlier analysis, this sentence matters not only as another episode of repression. It shows that the Kremlin no longer wants even a decorative anti-war position inside the legal political field. Opposition may exist only as long as it does not call the war a war and does not question the state’s version of events.
For many years, Yabloko remained almost the last legal political force in Russia able to speak the language of peace, human rights and European choice without being entirely in exile or under a ban. Its influence has sharply declined, but its presence on ballots still offered anti-war voters a symbolic channel of expression.
That is why the blow against Kruglov has an electoral dimension. Russia is preparing for State Duma elections in September, and Yabloko hopes to take part in the campaign. For the Kremlin, such participation is safe only if the party does not turn the election into a platform against the war.
A prison sentence over two posts works as a warning to the entire political periphery. One does not have to be a mass leader, have millions of supporters or organize protests. It is enough to leave a public trace of dissent that the state can retrieve years later and turn into a criminal case.
Kruglov put it plainly in court: this is a ban on dissent. In his view, the authorities equated political disagreement with hatred, and the attempt to speak about the war with a crime against the army. That substitution has become the foundation of Russia’s repressive system since 2022.
The law on “false information” about the army has become one of the main tools of that system. Its purpose is not only to punish specific statements, but to create an atmosphere in which citizens censor themselves. If any post can become a case carrying years in prison, silence becomes not a choice, but a survival strategy.
The Kremlin explains strict censorship as necessary to preserve unity in a confrontation with the West. But that argument exposes the regime’s central weakness: it does not trust society even enough to allow it to ask questions about the price of the war. Unity maintained by prison sentences is no longer political consent.
The Russian system has long learned to divide opposition into the convenient and the dangerous. Parliamentary parties may criticize details, but not the foundation of the regime. Non-systemic movements have been pushed out, crushed or forced into exile. Yabloko exists between these worlds: legal enough to be allowed onto the ballot, inconvenient enough to remain under constant pressure.
Support for parties outside parliament remains low, while pro-Kremlin forces retain a clear advantage in official polling. But for an authoritarian system, percentages are not the only danger. The very possibility that voters in a country now in its fifth year of war might see an option on the ballot to say “no” is itself a threat.
That is why Kruglov’s case is not aimed only at one man. It narrows the space for Yabloko’s entire campaign. Candidates, observers, regional activists and voters are being sent a signal: even legal participation in politics does not protect anyone from prosecution if it moves beyond the boundaries of permitted loyalty.
This is especially important as the war returns ever more deeply into Russian daily life. Ukrainian strikes on refineries, fuel problems, drone attacks deep inside Russia and economic strain make society more sensitive to questions about the purpose and cost of the conflict. The Kremlin answers not with debate, but with criminal fear.
The authorities understand that an anti-war position does not necessarily take the form of a street protest. It can be a ballot, election monitoring, a short post, a silent vote, a remark in court or a public refusal to call aggression a “special operation.” That is why repression is becoming preventive.
The delay between Kruglov’s posts and his arrest is also revealing. The state appears to be demonstrating that its political memory has no statute of limitations. What was written at the beginning of the war can catch up with a person three years later, precisely when the authorities need to remove a voice before elections or remind others of the boundaries of the permissible.
This mechanism works not only against politicians. It disciplines journalists, teachers, municipal deputies, activists, lawyers and ordinary social media users. In Russia after 2022, speech itself has become a zone of criminal risk, and public memory of Ukraine a space of state control.
The wider context is even darker. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russian authorities have intensified the criminalization of protest, dismantled independent media, expanded the labeling of “extremists” and “foreign agents,” and turned many forms of disagreement into individual risks without collective protection.
At the same time, the regime preserves the shell of elections. That is where its dual nature lies: ballots, party lists, campaigns and debates may exist, but only within limits where the result does not threaten power and the substance does not touch the war. When even a weak anti-war voice becomes visible, it is moved from politics into criminal law.
For the Kremlin, this is a way to preserve control before September. For society, it is another narrowing of the corridor. For Yabloko, it is a test of whether the party can participate in a campaign while its leaders and regional politicians face prosecution. For Ukraine and the West, it is a reminder that Russia’s war rests not only on tanks and oil revenues, but also on the suppression of internal dissent.
Kruglov told the court he wanted to see Russia as a peaceful country, one respected by its neighbors rather than feared. In today’s Russia, such a phrase sounds not like an election slogan, but like an act of political disobedience. That is why it is met with a sentence, not a debate.
Seven years in prison for social media posts is not about the past of two publications. It is about the future of Russian politics, where even minimal disagreement with the war must be either silenced or punished. The Kremlin is building a system in which a citizen may vote but must not ask questions, may remain silent but must not remember, may live in the state but has no right to disagree with its war.
That is why Kruglov’s sentence is one of the markers of pre-election Russia. The authorities are not simply clearing the field of competitors. They are clearing it of meanings that could remind society that the war has an alternative and that loyalty is not the only form of citizenship. This is the Kremlin’s deeper fear: not the strength of Yabloko, but the fact that there are still people in Russia ready to say “no.”
