Putin critic leaves Russia after being barred from running for parliament

Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin (right) [AP Photo]

Opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin, who criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine and tried to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2024 election, said yesterday [Macau time] he has left Russia, a move that follows a crackdown that barred him from a race for parliament this year.

Nadezhdin, 63, shared a video on Telegram, showing him standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

“Good news: I’m alive and free. Unfortunately, not in Russia for the time being,” he said, adding that he needs “to look around and figure out life going forward.”

In July, a Russian court fined Nadezhdin about $13 for displaying “extremist symbols,” charges that he rejected as absurd. The accusations stemmed from a 2023 online video that briefly showed a picture of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, convicted of extremism in a case widely seen as politically motivated.

Earlier that month, Nadezhdin also was designated a “foreign agent” — a label that brings additional government scrutiny as well as stigmatizing connotations in Russia.

That and a fine on an extremism-related charge barred him from running in September’s parliamentary vote, which is expected to be tightly controlled by the Kremlin.

The ruling United Russia party is seeking to preserve its dominance in the lower house of parliament in a race against the Communist Party and a couple of other parties that vote in sync with the Kremlin on key issues. The campaign comes amid signs of growing public fatigue with the war in Ukraine as fuel shortages and economic pain increase, an environment that reduces the authorities’ tolerance for even token opposition.

In January 2024, Nadezhdin collected thousands of signatures in his run for president as he openly called for an end to the war in Ukraine. But he was kept off the March 2024 ballot after Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that more than 9,000 signatures submitted by his campaign were invalid — enough to disqualify him.

A veteran politician, Nadezhdin worked in the government in the 1990s when he was an adviser to Sergei Kiriyenko, now a top Putin aide. He also served as a lawmaker and more recently became a member of a municipal council. He was one of the few high-profile Putin critics still living in Russia.

Earlier this year, Nadezhdin declared his bid to run for the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and vowed to continue his symbolic campaign even after the Justice Ministry branded him with the “foreign agent” designation.

Another blow came when police briefly detained Nadezhdin and charged him with displaying “extremist symbols.” The politician said he was considering a move abroad but was barred from leaving Russia. It wasn’t clear from his Monday video statement whether the ban has since been lifted, or if he left the country despite it.

After the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, authorities ramped up their crackdown on dissent and free speech, relentlessly targeting rights organizations, independent media, members of civil society organizations and Kremlin critics. Hundreds of people have been jailed and thousands of others fled the country. MDT/AP