- Russian presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin met with wives of soldiers who oppose Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and criticized the government’s decision to keep soldiers in the ranks.
- Nadezhdin, who is collecting signatures to run against President Putin in the next election, said soldiers need to be treated properly.
- Another peace supporter, Ekaterina Duntsova, was barred from the race, but three candidates recommended by pro-Kremlin parties were approved for the vote.
A Russian presidential candidate who opposes Russia’s military action in Ukraine met on Thursday with a group of wives of soldiers who are demanding their husbands be removed from the front lines.
Boris Nadezhdin, a longtime critic of the Kremlin and a local councilor in a town near Moscow, is seeking to qualify for the March 15-17 vote against President Vladimir Putin. Collecting signatures.
At a meeting with the wives and other relatives of Russian soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine, Nadezhdin, 60, criticized the government’s decision to keep them in the ranks as long as the fighting continues.
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“We want them to treat people who are fulfilling their duties in a decent manner,” he said.
Boris Nadezhdin speaks to journalists after a meeting at the Central Election Commission in Moscow, February 8, 2024. On Thursday, Nadejdin met with a group of soldiers’ wives demanding their husbands be discharged from the front lines. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
The wives of some reservists who will be called up for military service in the fall of 2022 are campaigning to have their husbands discharged and replaced with contract soldiers.
“We have been depressed for a long time and are looking for ways to cheer ourselves up,” said Maria Andreeva, whose brother is fighting in Ukraine, at the rally. She and other women have filed petitions and taken actions such as picketing government buildings, she said.
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Their demands were blocked by government-controlled media, and some pro-Kremlin politicians tried to cast them as pawns of the West, an accusation the women angrily rejected.
Amid military setbacks in Ukraine, Putin’s order to mobilize 300,000 reservists in 2022 was widely unpopular and prompted hundreds of thousands to flee the country to avoid conscription.
Since then, aware of the public backlash, the military has increasingly sought to strengthen its military presence in Ukraine by recruiting more volunteers. Officials claimed that about 500,000 people signed contracts with the Defense Ministry last year.
During Thursday’s meeting, Nadezhdin, a member of the local parliament for the city of Dolgoprudny on the outskirts of Moscow, reaffirmed his calls for an early end to the fighting in Ukraine.
“It is clear that this country wants peace,” Nadejdin said. “The country wants this to end. People want the people who were there to be brought back. We told the truth. How the government responds to this meeting is very important.”
He spoke optimistically about his presidential bid, claiming that his calls for peace were gaining more attention and that he had received donations from thousands of people.
“As long as I feel the support of the people, I will keep moving,” he said. “Millions of people support me.”
Under Russian law, independent candidates like Nadezhdin must collect at least 300,000 signatures from more than 40 regions.
Another presidential candidate who campaigned for peace in Ukraine, former local lawmaker Ekaterina Duntsova, was barred from the campaign last month after the Central Election Commission refused to accept her nomination, citing a technical error in the paperwork. It was.
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The electoral commission has already approved on the ballot three candidates who were nominated by the parties represented in parliament and did not need to collect signatures: Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party and Leonid Kharitonov of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party. Slutsky, Vladislav Davankov of the New Party. party of people.
All three parties generally support the Kremlin’s policies. Kharitonov ran against Putin in 2004 and finished a close second.
Putin’s tight control over Russia’s political system, established during his 24 years in power, makes his re-election in March all but certain. Prominent critics who could challenge him in the vote are in prison or live abroad, and most independent media outlets are banned from broadcasting.
Under constitutional reforms he engineered, Putin will be eligible to seek two more six-year terms after his term expires this year and could remain in power until 2036.
