Russian nominations for the presidential election have closed, and the list includes incumbent President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to win, as well as three other politicians, all of whom support a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian news agency TASS reported on Sunday.
Russian anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin is not on the list after the state election commission banned him from running on Thursday, mentioning a lack of signatures needed to support his candidacy.
Nadezhdin said on Thursday that he will challenge the Commission’s decision in the Russian Supreme Court.
Along with Putin, the commission named these politicians as candidates: Vladislav Davankov, deputy speaker of the Russian Duma and member of the New People’s caucus, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) loyal to the Kremlin, as well as Nikolai Kharitonov, a candidate of the Communist Party.
Expectations are that Putin, who chose to be an independent candidate rather than the candidate of the ruling party United Russia and who has been the supreme leader of Russia since 2000, will easily win the elections next month.
Although no one expects Nadezhdin, who has characterized Putin’s war in Ukraine as a “fatal mistake,” to win, his fierce criticism surprised some analysts. The Kremlin has said that it does not see him as a serious competitor to Putin.
E.Dz.
