An anti-war Yabloko candidate's diary records a campaign built to be blocked

Marina Peslyak, 21, ran for the St. Petersburg legislature on the only Russian party platform calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine. A diary she kept, published by the outlet Bereg and republished by Meduza, records what that meant in practice.

Russia's Supreme Court removed Yabloko's federal list from the ballot in August. Regional lists followed — every one except Novgorod Oblast. Peslyak, running as a single-mandate candidate in St. Petersburg, survived attempts to remove her but faced a cascade of obstacles: election commissions rejected her campaign videos, prosecutors summoned her over a clip a prosecutor herself called "prophetic," and officials demanded paperwork the law does not require. She crossed the words "peace," "freedom," and "life" out of her own script to get a video on air. It was pulled anyway.

On election day, police in Petersburg beat a Yabloko observer unconscious and charged him with disobeying police. Nearly 1,300 observers from Yabloko and the Communist Party were barred from polling stations. Peslyak finished last. She told Bereg the point was to say aloud that she wanted peace, and to show people they were not alone in wanting it.