Some Russian opponents choose exile; others are sent behind bars. Former MP Lev Chlosberg, 63, is a well-known face in the political landscape in Russia, particularly for his pacifist positions. But freedom of speech has a price, in a country which has severely restricted individual rights. The vice-president of the liberal party Yabloko was sentenced, Monday, August 17, to eleven years and one month in a penal colony, by the Pskov court, in the middle of the campaign for the legislative elections in September. He had already been placed in pre-trial detention in December 2025, after being placed under house arrest.
Lev Chlosberg, and his party, are the latest to publicly demand a ceasefire with kyiv and the immediate opening of negotiations. The sixty-year-old is a “democratic politician and a convinced humanist, described to franceinfo Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe. He has devoted many years to working for the development of Russia – as a country free of wars and violence.”
In this case, Lev Chlosberg was convicted of discrediting the army and spreading false information, both criminal offenses. He was notably accused of having called for a ceasefire with Ukraine, during a debate with a historian broadcast on the Odnoklassniki network. But also for having shared on Telegram, in February 2022, an article from the Echo of Moscow station repeating a cover from the British tabloid The Daily Mirror. It featured the portrait of Vladimir Putin and the caption: “His blood, his hands”.
“I pity you, your Honor!”
This republication "was carried out even before the existence of the Russian law on 'false military information'", adopted in March of the same year with retroactive effect, insists to franceinfo Kirill Goncharov, president of the Moscow branch of the party. "This has nothing to do with justice. Any position taken against the war is sanctioned. It is a clear escalation, both in terms of the length of the sentence and the desire to apply the law retroactively," he continues.
On the last day of his trial, Lev Chlosberg launched into a long pleading, the text of which was published in full by the independent online media Mediazona. For long minutes, the vice-president of Yabloko exhausted the political staff in place and the judicial system, in a tirade imbued with philosophy and references to the history of the country. “It’s totally uninteresting,” the judge quickly interrupted, before regularly returning to the charge, to ask the opponent to shorten before the outcome.
“There is only one urgency today: to put an end to the massacres and establish a political dialogue.”
Lev Shlosberg, vice-president of the Yabloko party
during his pleading at the Pskov court
The announcement of the sentence was greeted with screams in the room. “I pity you, Your Honor! You will have to live with this!”, reacted the person concerned, who appealed the decision. “The prosecutor is younger than me,” says Kirill Goncharov, 34. “It is simply appalling that she requested such a heavy sentence [twelve years], even by today’s standards.” But Lev Chlosberg "has lost none of his optimism, promises the local official. He reads a lot and thinks about the future of Russia."
The sixty-year-old will remain in the Pskov detention center while the appeal is considered. “Of course, it is very difficult for him and his family,” commented Nikolai Rybakov, president of Yabloko, in a statement sent to franceinfo. “But he understands that it is even more difficult for those who lose their lives.”
Exhausting legal proceedings
The severity of the sentence may come as a surprise, given that the sixty-year-old represents a party with a modest audience, which has not occupied a seat in the Duma since 2003. "But it is not the parliamentary elections that concern the regional authorities in Pskov," believes Nikolai Rybakov.
“The regional authorities simply want to put pressure on their main critic.”
Nikolai Rybakov, chairman of the Yabloko party
in a statement sent to franceinfo
Lev Chlosberg's fate is in fact sealed in this town in northwestern Russia, where he has headed the regional branch of Yabloko since 1996. The opponent's notoriety took a leap in August 2014, when Moscow denied any involvement in the fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatist militias from Donbass. The Pskovskaya Guberniya newspaper, headed by Lev Chlosberg, publishes photos of graves of paratroopers of the 76th Airborne Division, claiming that they died in eastern Ukraine. Which therefore establishes Russian involvement in the war then in progress. The repercussions were national and the Ministry of Defense reacted with a vigorous denial.
A few days later, Lev Chlosberg was beaten up by strangers in the street. He was dismissed from his mandate as regional deputy the following year, but regained it during the 2016 elections. The arrival of a new regional governor renewed pressure on the team of the newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, which lost its authorization to publish three years later. The editorial staff found refuge in Latvia, a neighboring country, but Lev Chlosberg chose to stay in the country.
The regional manager is fined and declared ineligible, in 2021, for having participated in a demonstration in support of Alexeï Navalny. In 2022, he received several fines for discrediting the army after videos shared online. The following year, his name was added to the register of “foreign agents”. Even later, he was fined several times – for forgetting to mention his status as a “foreign agent” on videos and for republishing an appeal to the Russians written by actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
New legal proceedings were opened against him, and Lev Chlosberg was placed on the register of extremists and terrorists at the end of 2025. “He was absolutely convinced that he would be arrested one day, because he already said he was being pressured by the regional governor,” exiled politician Boris Nadejdine told franceinfo. “He told me that he would always stay with his people.” Like Alexeï Navalny before him, the head of Ioblako is not considering any departure. Whatever the cost. “He loved Russia and did not want to leave it in such a difficult period,” comments Nikolai Rybakov.
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Moreover, Lev Chlosberg sometimes expresses the little consideration he has for opponents in exile, especially when they hope for a military defeat to obtain a change of regime. “A Russian politician who rejoices in the deaths of Russian citizens ceases to be a Russian politician,” he wrote on X during the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk. In November 2024, Lev Chlosberg still arouses strong reactions after an interview in which he believes that Ukraine can no longer be considered "a victim", after two years of fighting. “If Ukraine were a victim, Ukraine would no longer exist. It simply would not exist,” he said then.
Yabloko party deprived of legislative elections
The head of Yabloko, however, has always advocated an end to the fighting, with a ceasefire and negotiations. “The verdict against Lev Chlosberg symbolizes Vladimir Putin's desire to continue an unpopular war,” Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, told franceinfo. “The majority of Russians want the war to end as quickly as possible, according to all the sociological data we have. Even if they fear openly criticizing Vladimir Putin himself.”
"The presence on the political scene of people ready to talk about peace threatens to shatter the illusion maintained by propaganda. Lev Chlosberg was sanctioned in order to preserve this illusion."
Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe
at franceinfo
Two hours after Lev Chlosberg's conviction, in a separate case, the Supreme Court confirmed the ban on Yabloko from presenting candidates in the September elections. “That two decisions of this nature come on the same day is not a coincidence,” says Kirill Goncharov. “The authorities are suppressing a legal avenue of political representation while imprisoning a man who has constantly defended it.” Another party official, Maxim Krouglov, had already been sentenced to seven years in prison in June for similar reasons.
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Dozens of people were arrested Monday in front of the court, where they had come to express their support for the opponent. Young people, mostly. “Peaceful protest should never be penalized,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Thursday. Nikolai Rybakov, for his part, assures that "Lev will continue to fight so that Russia becomes a country where nothing is more valuable than human life, and where the law protects human rights."
