LONDON – Several campaign staff and volunteers for disqualified Russian presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin have been arrested in what he cast as an attempt by the authorities to thwart efforts to monitor the presidential election later this week.
At least one staff member said he was physically attacked in the days before the March 15 to 17 ballot.
Although Mr Nadezhdin conceded weeks ago he had no chance of appearing on the ballot, the anti-war politician’s offices have remained active, and he had said he was raising funds to train election observers and conduct exit polls.
At least 17 of his associates have been detained since he was banned from running in February, Russian media reports and his team say, even as President Vladimir Putin is almost guaranteed this week to win another six years in power.
Mr Nadezhdin’s Vladivostok branch, in Russia’s Far East, said at least three staff had been detained on the morning of March 13 and that the whereabouts of two remain unknown.
One of those detained, Mr Igor Krasnov, the local branch head, was later given six days’ administrative arrest under an anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) propaganda statute.
Commenting on Mr Krasnov’s detention, Mr Nadezhdin said: “The real purpose of such actions by ‘law enforcement officers’ is to prevent the guys from participating in the elections on March 15 to 17, including observing at the precinct election commission and participating in exit polls.”
In a post on his Telegram channel, he added that “similar actions were also carried out in Moscow and Stavropol”, without elaborating.
Rights group OVD-Info reported that an 18-year-old volunteer in Vladivostok was also jailed on March 13 for six days.
Later on March 13, Mr Konstantin Larionov, head of the Nadezhdin branch in Kaluga in western Russia, was reportedly beaten by unknown men while returning home from work, according to pictures he posted on Telegram showing himself receiving first aid for bruises on his forehead, arms and knees.
A spokesperson for Mr Nadezhdin said on Telegram that the attack was associated with the man’s political work and added: “We demand an objective investigation and punishment of those responsible.”
Campaigning on a ticket to end the war in Ukraine, Mr Nadezhdin’s short-lived presidential run garnered a groundswell of support among some mostly young, urban Russians.
Thousands queued in the depths of winter to sign their names in support of his candidacy, which was later barred by the Central Election Commission owing to what it said were irregularities in the signatures.
Even from the sidelines, Mr Nadezhdin’s politicking has proved a disturbance to the Kremlin, which says Mr Putin is the overwhelming choice of the Russian people.
The sight of tens of thousands of Russians, including Mr Nadezhdin, paying their respects earlier in March at the grave of the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was a further annoyance for the Kremlin.
Some 14 staff from Mr Nadezhdin’s Voronezh headquarters in southern Russia were unable to attend Navalny’s funeral on March 1 after some were detained while trying to board a train to Moscow, according to Russian media reports. Several were given short jail sentences.
Other Nadezhdin staff were detained by traffic police as they were trying to leave Voronezh for Moscow by car. REUTERS
