Russian anti-war opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin detained by police
An anti-war politician who tried to challenge Vladimir Putin in the recent Russian presidential election has been arrested, according to his social media account.
Boris Nadezhdin was taken to a police station in a town west of Moscow on Monday morning, weeks after announcing he would run in September’s Duma (parliamentary) elections.
Nadezhdin was accused of “displaying extremist symbols” in reference to a photo of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny that appeared for 10 seconds in a video reposted on Nadezhdin’s social media accounts in November 2023.
Last week, Nadezhdin was described as a “foreign agent” by the justice ministry and accused of spreading misinformation about the Russian government and urging people to attend unauthorized rallies.
This label would prevent him from participating in elections in September. The crime charged against him on Monday also includes a one-year ban from participating in elections.
In early 2024, Nadezhdin sought to run for president with an anti-war manifesto calling for an end to hostilities in Ukraine.
He told the BBC at the time that he was supported by “tens of millions of people” who did not want “Russia to go down this path of authoritarianism and militarism”.
He also said that if elected president, his first task would be to “stop the conflict with Ukraine and then restore normal relations between Russia and the Western community.”
But his criticism of Putin remained restrained, leading some to speculate that the Kremlin would allow him to run to create the illusion that the election was fair.
Nadezhdin’s candidacy was blocked by the Russian election commission weeks before the vote, on the grounds that more than 15% of the signatures he submitted in his candidate application were defective.
He objected to this but ultimately could not run as a candidate like other credible opposition figures.
On March 18, 2024, Putin declared a landslide victory, ushering in a fifth term in office.
The next presidential election is scheduled for 2030, when Putin will be 78 years old. A constitutional amendment passed in 2020 reset term limits, allowing him to remain in power until 2036.
Earlier this year, as the Kremlin began restricting internet access to millions of people across the country and Russia’s economic crisis deepened, Nadezhdin told the BBC that people “started to understand that there was a direct connection between their everyday problems, such as healthcare, food prices, internet problems and Vladimir Putin’s policies.”
The Kremlin now has almost complete control over the Russian political landscape and it is unlikely that anyone will be allowed to challenge Putin’s rule.
Opposition figures who could offer alternatives to Russian voters are either in prison, exiled or dead.
