Russia arrests Kremlin critic who plans to run in September elections

Russian police on Monday arrested an anti-war Kremlin critic who once tried to run against President Vladimir Putin and who planned to take part in parliament elections in two months.

Boris Nadezhdin, 63, shot to fame in Russia in 2024, when he unexpectedly gathered support to stand against Putin in that year's presidential elections. He was barred from doing so after a short campaign. 

He is one of the few Putin critics in Russia who publicly criticises Putin's rule and Moscow's Ukraine war who is not in prison or exile. 

"The police came," Nadezhdin said on Telegram. 

He later published a document that said he was being charged with "demonstration of extremist symbols" for a 2023 video, which featured a photo of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. 

Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February 2024, shortly before a presidential election. 

A lawyer told Russian independent media that Nadezhdin will be brought to court later on Monday. 

The arrest came three days after authorities declared Nadezhdin a "foreign agent" -- a tag used by the Kremlin to stifle dissent. 

Nadezhdin has been gathering signatures to register as a candidate for lower-house elections in September. 

The vote will take place in a fifth year of war, with Ukrainian strikes affecting ordinary life more than ever. 

Nadezhdin said last week the "foreign agent" label will not stop him from gathering signatures and that he planned to dispute the "idiotic" label in court. 

"I am the only opposition independent candidate in Russia that is gathering signatures to run," he said in a video on YouTube, planning to stand in the northern Moscow suburbs. 

In the video, he directly criticised Putin. 

"The consequences of the war are obvious to everyone," he said, citing a "petrol crisis" caused by Ukrainian drone strikes and rising prices.  

"The course that Putin is taking the country all these years, 25 years of his power, is the path of militarisation, isolationism and authoritarianism," he said, adding: 

"It is a path that leads to chaos and -- God forbid, to the example of 1917," he said, referring to the Russian revolution. 

Putin has set the parliamentary election for September 20. 

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© Agence France-Presse