Putin critic convicted, barred from Russia parliament race

Boris Nadezhdin, who criticised Moscow’s military action in Ukraine and tried to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2024 election, was convicted on Friday of displaying “extremist symbols” - an action that will keep him out of this year’s parliamentary race.

The charges against Nadezhdin, 63, were based on a 2023 online interview in which he briefly showed a picture of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who at that time was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of extremism that were widely seen as politically motivated. Navalny later died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024.

Nadezhdin rejected the case against him as absurd and argued authorities were trying to keep him from campaigning in September’s parliamentary vote. The court in Dolgoprudny, a town on Moscow’s northern outskirts where he lives, convicted him and ordered him to pay a fine of 1,000 rubles.

A week ago, Russia’s Justice Ministry named Nadezhdin as a “foreign agent,” a designation that carries strong pejorative connotations and brings additional government scrutiny. It also bars him from holding public office, but he was still able to wage his symbolic campaign for a parliament seat until Friday’s verdict.

Nadezhdin complained of feeling sick during Friday’s hearing, which was interrupted to let an ambulance team check his condition. Before the hearing, he said he was considering going abroad but was barred from leaving Russia.

In January 2024, Nadezhdin collected thousands of signatures as he openly called for a halt to the fighting 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. Putin faced only token opposition in the election and easily won a fifth term.