Russian anti-war politician Nadezhdin says he will not run in election

Russian anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin said Sunday that he will not run in September's legislative elections, saying he has been silenced and pushed out of politics.

Nadezhdin is one of the few politicians in Russia who has openly criticised President Vladimir Putin and Moscow's offensive in Ukraine. He had recently been convicted for displaying extremist symbols.

Writing on Telegram, Nadezhdin said his ability to legally take part in opposition politics in Russia had been exhausted. He said he was not prepared to put at risk the people who support him and took part in the election campaign.

The 63-year-old's campaign had been severely weakened after he was declared a foreign agent last week and then sentenced on Friday for displaying extremist symbols. The case concerned a 2023 video post that briefly showed deceased dissident Alexei Navalny.

Navalny and his organisations had been designated extremist before his death in prison in 2024. Since then, Russian authorities have regularly accused people of promoting extremism for sharing his comments or even photographs of him.

Since the full-scale offensive against Ukraine began in February 2022, Russian authorities have sharply increased pressure on critics and imprisoned hundreds of them. The report said almost all opponents are now in prison, dead or in exile. Nadezhdin had been one of the few people in Russia to publicly denounce Putin and the offensive in Ukraine without being imprisoned.