The election commission found "foreign assets" worth 12 kopecks with the opposition candidate.

      As an acting deputy and a candidate for the Legislative Assembly of the Kirov Region of the eighth convocation, he is confident that a reasonable court will not remain deaf to the reasoned and evidenced arguments about the actual absence of foreign shares. In case of failure in the local judicial arena, the optimistically inclined Tsaryuk intends to defend his right to remain on the lists of opposition candidates in the politically independent appellate instance.

      Recall that earlier the State Duma adopted a package of laws that came into force on January 1, 2026, which establish control through the state information system "Poseidon" and will identify corruption risks and connections of high-ranking officials, candidates, and deputies, as well as regional heads to detect illegal financial operations. Special attention is paid to real estate transactions, the purchase of vehicles, securities, and other property.

      And the first "fallen opposition member" was the party "Yabloko," whose candidates for the State Duma received foreign funding.

      Neither shares nor money

      As Vyacheslav Tsaryuk explained while commenting on the "financial misunderstanding" that prompted the regional election commission to go to court, back in June 2021, through his personal brokerage account at Sberbank, he purchased four shares of the gold mining company "Polymetal" — at that time a joint venture of Russia and Kazakhstan. The purchase price was 6,700 rubles.

      In 2022, "Polymetal" "shed its Russian assets" to avoid sanctions and changed its name to "Solid Resources inc." In April 2022, the Board of Directors of Sberbank — in order to evade possible sanctions — transferred the shares of all foreign issuers to the sole Russian operator "KIT-Finance," which was not subject to "Western restrictions," without any involvement of the shareholders.

      "To be honest," Tsaryuk clarifies, "I didn't notice the loss of shares at that time: the package was small, and I am not a professional participant in the stock market. And the shares of the company 'Polymetal' stopped appearing on the brokerage account and were also not indicated by Sberbank in the certificate of absence of foreign accounts."

      But he had to recall the shares purchased five years ago this August, specifically on the evening of Friday the 21st, when the regional election commission reported Tsaryuk's concealment of a 12-kopek "foreign" asset. They suggested making a decision: to withdraw from the elections himself, to announce the candidate's withdrawal to the regional party branch, or "we will file a lawsuit ourselves."

      "We will fight back," the candidate thought at that time.

      Scattered from sanctions for phantom shares

      As Vyacheslav Valeryevich discovered by the beginning of the current week, in December 2025, the company "Solid Resources inc" initiated the procedure for blocking and forced buyback of shares from all Russian shareholders. That is, as of January 1, 2026, the securities no longer belonged to Tsaryuk. Thus, the information he submitted in July about the absence of foreign assets is completely truthful.

      And although the "golden shares" are still listed on his personal account in the Russian depository in the amount of four pieces — their current value is 12 kopecks, this can only be explained by the fact that the securities were blocked by the National Settlement Depository of the Russian Federation. And today, "correcting the situation" is impossible due to the broken communication with the analogous European agency — the EuroClear depository.

      By the way, according to a well-known Kirov expert on stock markets, to zero out the account, the Russian depository needs a document for "write-off." But such "declarations" EuroClear does not provide today — due to sanctions. Therefore, "phantom shares" can remain on a person indefinitely.

      "Having a firm belief that I do not intend to withdraw from the elections, I sent an official request to the Depository to prove my complete lack of foreign assets. And separately establish that at the time of submitting the application to the election commission, the shares of 'Solid' no longer belonged to me," Vyacheslav Tsaryuk clarifies.

      Fight, do not surrender

      By the way, the situation with the opposition candidate's concealment of a 12-kopek foreign asset has sparked active debates among deputies. Where a smaller portion believes that "Tsaryuk will win," as he already has experience resisting attempts to remove him from the elections.

      But the larger part — especially among veteran deputies — believes that not only the opposition is learning to fight against the possible intentions of political elites, but the setting for "complete victory of the ruling party" obliges the "removers" to think and... use cash.

      "I can assume that a lawsuit to remove Tsaryuk will be filed on a falling flag, so that the candidate has time to appeal, but there will be no time left for cassation. And if in cassation the court recognizes his rightness, but with a delay, no court will recognize the elections as invalid. They will say: 'Sorry, brother. Come back to run for the ninth convocation,'" shared the opinion of a well-known opposition member.

      As Vyacheslav Tsaryuk himself explained, last Friday, when they announced the intention to remove him from the elections, the first thought that came to mind was the reaction to the appeal to Alexander Bastrykin.

      Recall that on August 15, the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation received a deputy complaint about the inaction of the Kirov regional leadership, which did not consider it necessary or possible to restore the roof of a residential building in Shutovshchina, torn off by a hurricane back on July 26. The day after, the Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case "on the fact":

      "Having studied the situation carefully," the candidate for the mandate reflects, "I firmly rejected the idea of 'retaliation,' as thousands of candidates for deputies across the country fell under the millstones of Rosfinmonitoring — only 160 of them in the State Duma, and representatives of the ruling party are not in the minority there. So the data transmitted by Rosfinmonitoring to the Kirov regional election commission cannot be part of a 'vengeful plan.' This is merely a technical error that has crept in..."

      To which the opposition sarcastically remarked:

      "Of course, this is not revenge from Sberbank and the Depository, but a solid reason to send you to the 'bench' for 12 'foreign kopecks' so that you remain silent for the next five years."