Russia Watch Thread

[Time_Traveller]

Russians who want rid of Putin pin election hopes on anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin

Mon 29 Jan 2024 13.18 GMT

Thousands of Russians queued for hours in the freezing cold across the country over the past few days to show their support for an anti-war candidate before this year’s stage-managed presidential ballot in which Vladimir Putin is the only permitted winner.

Boris Nadezhdin, a centre-right candidate who has called himself a “principled opponent” of the war, has said in his manifesto that Putin made a “fatal mistake by starting the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s preferred term for its invasion. “Putin sees the world from the past and is dragging Russia into the past.”

As the end-of-the-month deadline approached for Nadezhdin to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures to appear on the ballot for the elections in March, social media posts showed Russians joining long lines to give their signatures in cities across the country.

Nadezhdin is a decades-long veteran of Russian politics, with a history of ties to Kremlin insiders, including Putin’s domestic politics curator, Sergei Kiriyenko, and some of its most pointed critics, such as the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Nadezhdin is a rare critical voice allowed to appear on the shouty chatshows that dominate state TV, playing the role of token opposition that some have said maintains the fiction of competition in Russia. Now, those critics see him as a spoiler in an election otherwise devoid of drama.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -nadezhdin

[Time_Traveller]

Location of jailed Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza unknown, say backers

Mon 29 Jan 2024 19.56 GMT

The prominent Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is serving a 25-year sentence for treason, has disappeared from the Siberian prison where he was behind bars, according to his supporters.

Kara-Murza, 42, was being held in a prison in the Omsk region, but a letter sent to him by the activist and journalist Alexander Podrabinek was returned with the notation that the inmate was no longer there, Podrabinek said on Facebook.

Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer for Kara-Murza, said another lawyer who tried to visit the political activist and journalist on Monday was told that he was not in the prison, according to the Telegram news channel Agentstvo.

“There are no grounds for his transfer and that makes it even more frightening as my husband is in the hands of the same people who tried to kill him twice, in 2015 and 2017,” his wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, said. “I demand that the Russian government provide us with information about my husband’s whereabouts.”

Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has twice survived poisonings that he blamed on the Russian authorities, has rejected the charges against him as punishment for standing up to Vladimir Putin and likened the proceedings to the show trials under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ay-backers

[firestar464]

Russians who want rid of Putin pin election hopes on anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin

Mon 29 Jan 2024 13.18 GMT

Thousands of Russians queued for hours in the freezing cold across the country over the past few days to show their support for an anti-war candidate before this year’s stage-managed presidential ballot in which Vladimir Putin is the only permitted winner.

Boris Nadezhdin, a centre-right candidate who has called himself a “principled opponent” of the war, has said in his manifesto that Putin made a “fatal mistake by starting the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s preferred term for its invasion. “Putin sees the world from the past and is dragging Russia into the past.”

As the end-of-the-month deadline approached for Nadezhdin to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures to appear on the ballot for the elections in March, social media posts showed Russians joining long lines to give their signatures in cities across the country.

Nadezhdin is a decades-long veteran of Russian politics, with a history of ties to Kremlin insiders, including Putin’s domestic politics curator, Sergei Kiriyenko, and some of its most pointed critics, such as the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Nadezhdin is a rare critical voice allowed to appear on the shouty chatshows that dominate state TV, playing the role of token opposition that some have said maintains the fiction of competition in Russia. Now, those critics see him as a spoiler in an election otherwise devoid of drama.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -nadezhdin

never worked, will not work

[Powers]

Russians who want rid of Putin pin election hopes on anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin

Mon 29 Jan 2024 13.18 GMT

Thousands of Russians queued for hours in the freezing cold across the country over the past few days to show their support for an anti-war candidate before this year’s stage-managed presidential ballot in which Vladimir Putin is the only permitted winner.

Boris Nadezhdin, a centre-right candidate who has called himself a “principled opponent” of the war, has said in his manifesto that Putin made a “fatal mistake by starting the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s preferred term for its invasion. “Putin sees the world from the past and is dragging Russia into the past.”

As the end-of-the-month deadline approached for Nadezhdin to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures to appear on the ballot for the elections in March, social media posts showed Russians joining long lines to give their signatures in cities across the country.

Nadezhdin is a decades-long veteran of Russian politics, with a history of ties to Kremlin insiders, including Putin’s domestic politics curator, Sergei Kiriyenko, and some of its most pointed critics, such as the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Nadezhdin is a rare critical voice allowed to appear on the shouty chatshows that dominate state TV, playing the role of token opposition that some have said maintains the fiction of competition in Russia. Now, those critics see him as a spoiler in an election otherwise devoid of drama.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -nadezhdin

never worked, will not work

It could but only as a fail-safe.

[wjfox]

[Vakanai]

Russians who want rid of Putin pin election hopes on anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin

Mon 29 Jan 2024 13.18 GMT

Thousands of Russians queued for hours in the freezing cold across the country over the past few days to show their support for an anti-war candidate before this year’s stage-managed presidential ballot in which Vladimir Putin is the only permitted winner.

Boris Nadezhdin, a centre-right candidate who has called himself a “principled opponent” of the war, has said in his manifesto that Putin made a “fatal mistake by starting the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s preferred term for its invasion. “Putin sees the world from the past and is dragging Russia into the past.”

As the end-of-the-month deadline approached for Nadezhdin to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures to appear on the ballot for the elections in March, social media posts showed Russians joining long lines to give their signatures in cities across the country.

Nadezhdin is a decades-long veteran of Russian politics, with a history of ties to Kremlin insiders, including Putin’s domestic politics curator, Sergei Kiriyenko, and some of its most pointed critics, such as the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Nadezhdin is a rare critical voice allowed to appear on the shouty chatshows that dominate state TV, playing the role of token opposition that some have said maintains the fiction of competition in Russia. Now, those critics see him as a spoiler in an election otherwise devoid of drama.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -nadezhdin

Would be great if they were an actual democracy and their elections weren't fixed in favor of their dictator for life - but they aren't a democracy and their elections are only for show. There's only one way Putin will ever be removed from power, and that involves a toe tag.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Russia's most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in prison inside the Arctic Circle, Russian news agencies report, quoting the prison service.

Seen as President Vladimir Putin's most vociferous critic, Navalny was serving a 19-year jail term for offences widely considered politically motivated.

He was moved to an Arctic penal colony, considered one of the toughest jails, late last year.

The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said he had "felt unwell" after a walk on Friday.

He had "almost immediately lost consciousness", it said in a statement. The causes of his death were being established, Tass news agency reported.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68315943

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]