diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 522479947..cad76cd50 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #6584: i18n: Error when compiling message catalogs on Hindi
 * #6708: mathbase: Some deprecated functions have removed
 * #6709: autodoc: mock object does not work as a class decorator
+* #6712: Allow not to install sphinx.testing as runtime (mainly for ALT Linux)
 
 Testing
 --------
diff --git a/sphinx/util/osutil.py b/sphinx/util/osutil.py
index f9c7ce6c4..d74ea20fb 100644
--- a/sphinx/util/osutil.py
+++ b/sphinx/util/osutil.py
@@ -22,7 +22,12 @@ from os import path
 from typing import Any, Generator, Iterator, List, Tuple
 
 from sphinx.deprecation import RemovedInSphinx30Warning, RemovedInSphinx40Warning
-from sphinx.testing.path import path as Path
+
+try:
+    # for ALT Linux (#6712)
+    from sphinx.testing.path import path as Path
+except ImportError:
+    Path = None  # type: ignore
 
 if False:
     # For type annotation
@@ -178,7 +183,7 @@ fs_encoding = sys.getfilesystemencoding() or sys.getdefaultencoding()
 
 
 def abspath(pathdir: str) -> str:
-    if isinstance(pathdir, Path):
+    if Path is not None and isinstance(pathdir, Path):
         return pathdir.abspath()
     else:
         pathdir = path.abspath(pathdir)