Boris Nadezhdin has become a dilemma for the Kremlin as he seeks to run in the March 17 presidential election. The question now is whether Russian authorities will allow him on the ballot.
The stocky, bespectacled 60-year-old local legislator and academic has struck a chord with the public, openly calling for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine, the end of mobilizing Russian men for the military, and starting a dialogue with the West. He also has criticized the country’s repression of LGBTQ+ activism.
“The collection of signatures has gone unexpectedly well for us,” Nadezhdin told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Moscow. “We didn’t expect this, to be honest.”
Good thing Putin allows free and fair elections and never does anything really, really bad to people who try to run against him, isn’t it?
all the snide comments about “business as usual in Russia” are old, and not funny… this situation is clearly different for a lot of reasons… i don’t know if Putin can do as much about this as he normally could…