Russia’s Presidential Candidates Registration Is Now Closed

Russia’s registration of presidential candidates for the March election finished on Sunday, with a list that includes President Vladimir Putin, who is anticipated to win, and three politicians who all back Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The list did not include the Russian anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin, who was prevented from running on Thursday by the Central Election Commission (CEC) due to faults in the collection of signatures required for the support of his candidature.

The CEC registered Vladislav Davankov, deputy chair of the Russian Duma and a member of the New People caucus; Leonid Slutsky, the leader of the Kremlin-aligned ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR); and Nikolai Kharitonov, the Communist Party nomination.

Putin, 71, who has opted to run as an independent rather than as the candidate of the ruling United Russia party, has been Russia’s main leader since 2000 and controls all the state’s levers, is predicted to handily win next month’s election.

While no one has expected the 60-year-old Nadezhdin, who has called Putin’s war in Ukraine a ‘fatal mistake’, to win, several commentators were stunned by his trenchant criticism. The Kremlin has stated that it does not regard him as a credible rival to Putin.

Nadezhdin announced on Thursday that he would challenge the CEC’s decision at Russia’s Supreme Court.

The war, referred to as a special military operation by the Kremlin, is reaching the end of its second year. It has killed thousands on both sides, displaced millions of Ukrainians, and reduced hundreds of cities and villages to ashes.

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