As of July 20, at least 21 Russian politicians had faced administrative cases over the “display of extremist or Nazi symbols” that prevented them from participating in elections, according to a count by Novaya Gazeta Europe.
The publication identified 14 members of Yabloko, four Communist Party politicians, one member of A Just Russia and two independent candidates — Boris Nadezhdin and Tomsk activist Anton Isakov.
In most cases, the accusations were based on previously published photographs of Alexei Navalny, symbols associated with his organizations or video from his funeral.
In 18 of the 21 known cases at the time, politicians received minimum fines of 1,000 to 2,000 rubles.
Russian law nevertheless allows the administrative conviction itself to be used as grounds for temporarily barring a person from running in elections.
The number of known cases continued to grow after July 20.