War critic out to challenge Putin for the presidency

A Russian opposition politician who is against the war in Ukraine hopes to challenge Vladimir Putin for the presidency in March.

Boris Nadezhdin: ‘We need to elect somebody else, and not Putin.’ Picture: AFP

A Russian opposition politician who is against the war in Ukraine has urged his supporters to register their backing for his attempt to challenge Vladimir Putin for the presidency in March.

Boris Nadezhdin needs at least 100,000 signatures from more than 40 regions across Russia to be registered for the tightly controlled elections. There were large queues in Moscow, St Petersburg and other big cities at the weekend as people queued to register their support.

The 60-year-old former MP has been backed by a number of prominent exiled Kremlin critics, including allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon who is now one of Mr Putin’s fiercest critics. Mr Nadezhdin’s campaign website says that Russia should end the war and start peace talks with Ukraine and the West.

Mr Nadezhdin, whose candidacy is supported by the tiny Civic Initiative Party, came to prominence in May last year when he spoke out against Mr Putin and the war on state-controlled television. “We need to elect somebody else, and not Putin. Everything will be good then,” he said.

Such comments are extremely rare on Russian television and some analysts say Mr Nadezhdin has been invited on to shows to act as a “whipping boy” for pro-Kremlin pundits.

He said on Tuesday that he had already collected the required 100,000 signatures but that many of them were illegible or otherwise flawed and that he needed greater support from across Russia’s regions.

Even if he succeeds, it is far from certain that he will be allowed to stand: a Kremlin source told Meduza, an opposition website, that no anti-war candidates will be allowed. More than 160 Russian citizens have been imprisoned for opposing the war, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group. They include Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual British-Russian citizen, who was jailed for 25 years.

Russia is also set to introduce a law that would allow officials to confiscate the property of anyone convicted of criticising the war or who supports sanctions against Moscow.

THE TIMES