The pacifist Russian opposition figure Borís Nadezhdin, who two years ago unsuccessfully tried to challenge Vladímir Putin in the presidential elections and who has now been barred from running in next month’s legislative elections, has left Russia. He announced this Monday with a video recorded in Paris and published on social media.
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“I have good news: I am alive and free, unfortunately not in Russia,” the politician said on his Telegram channel with the Eiffel Tower in the background. “Now I need to assess my situation and decide how to move forward,” and he added that he will announce his plans soon.
Last month the Ministry of Justice included the liberal politician, who was a national deputy between 1999 and 2003, on its list of “foreign agents,” and a week later he was taken to court and fined a symbolic amount for “extremism” (one thousand rubles, just over 11 euros).
Nadezhdin called the so-called “special military operation” a “fatal mistake”
Both decisions disqualify him from running for public office and cut short his aspirations to run in the September 20 Duma elections, for which he was preparing his candidacy.
Almost all of Putin’s Kremlin opponents are either imprisoned or exiled. His main opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in prison in February 2024. His supporters claim he was poisoned.
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Precisely in 2024 Nadezhdin tried to present his candidacy for that year’s presidential elections, in which Putin was re-elected for another six years.
Amid the war against Ukraine, which began in February 2022, Nadezhdin repeatedly said that launching the “special military operation,” the official name given in Moscow, was a “fatal mistake.”
To run, Nadezhdin had to collect signatures to endorse his candidacy. Thousands of Russians queued to give their support. But the Central Electoral Commission ended up rejecting his candidacy due to formal defects by annulling thousands of those endorsements.
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