Back United Russia’s strongest challengers or spoil your ballot? Russia’s opposition can’t agree on a strategy for the upcoming State Duma election.

Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov, speaking at a meeting with supporters in St. Petersburg, sharply criticized the voting strategy for the State Duma elections proposed by exiled opposition politicians Yulia Navalnaya and Maxim Katz. The basic idea behind the strategy is to vote for any party other than United Russia in the party-list race, and for the strongest opponents of the ruling party in the single-member district races. Yabloko’s strategy (its list was barred from the State Duma election) is to spoil the ballot in the party-list vote. After Rybakov’s remarks, Katz responded. We recap their long-distance exchange.

Nikolai Rybakov: People in power are jailing my colleagues for 11 years, and you [supporters of the Katz and Navalnaya plan] want to support them in the elections. Some politicians who don’t understand politics have led to the deaths of people in the war. They led to this by what they did in 2021. You’re proposing to go, like sheep, to their tune again and vote for those who led to the deaths of people in Russia and Ukraine. That responsibility will fall not on their hands, but on yours. Afterward, you won’t be able to say, “Well, Yulia just didn’t get it, imagine that.” They’re abroad, and we’re here. We’re telling you this ends in the deaths of people and prison sentences! They’re sitting abroad and manipulating you!

Maxim Katz: Yabloko continues to engage in politics in Russia, and that’s brave and important. Yulia Navalnaya and I are urging people to support its candidates in the single-member district races. As for the party-list vote, I don’t think Yabloko’s plan — spoiling your ballot — is a good idea. But that’s just how it goes: positions differ. As for Nikolai Rybakov’s harsh words, I’d urge you to pay them no attention: you need to understand the kind of pressure and risks under which politicians in Russia who advocate for peace have to work.