He called his detention a reaction from the authorities to the fact that even after being recognized as a “foreign agent” in Russia, he continued to collect signatures to participate in the State Duma elections.
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“I feel anxious,” said the 63-year-old politician, “because it is obvious: yesterday they just wanted to lock me up. Unfortunately, my health condition and age are such that I might not even survive 15 days in a stuffy cell. I will simply die there.”
Despite his fear, B. Nadezhdin stated that he will continue to publicly criticize the authorities. According to him, Sergei Kiriyenko, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, has known him for about 30 years and understands that it will not be possible to agree with him to “shut up and start supporting Putin and the ‘special military operation’.”
Read more: Simply and clearly: who is detained Boris Nadezhdin and why is he inconvenient for the Kremlin?
The politician linked the protocol drawn up against him to the fact that being recognized as a “foreign agent” did not force him to stop the signature collection campaign for participation in the State Duma elections.
“They declared me a ‘foreign agent’ and thought I would immediately leave or say: ‘Stop, no one will go to collect signatures.’ But on the contrary, I started collecting signatures intensively,” B. Nadezhdin told “Agentstvo.”
“Therefore, they moved to ‘plan B’ – to draw up a protocol against me, according to which the election commission will instantly cancel my candidacy,” he noted.
Although detained on Monday, B. Nadezhdin intends to continue collecting signatures for the State Duma elections: “We started the machine, opened headquarters in several cities, produced promotional materials – brochures, T-shirts with the inscription ‘Nadezhdin’.”
“We will try to continue, although it is clear that the chance that I will be registered is decreasing,” the politician noted.
At the same time, he admitted that his own chances to participate in the elections are probably exhausted but emphasized his intention to seek other forms of political activity. According to him, young opposition supporters mobilized by his 2024 presidential campaign will be able to continue participating in politics: “Not everyone is a ‘foreign agent’ and extremist. Not everyone will be declared ‘foreign agents.'”
B. Nadezhdin also revealed that after the news of his detention, his headquarters deleted all correspondence, including conversations with signature collectors. Now his team is trying to gather them again, “but they no longer have much enthusiasm.”
According to the politician, the Kremlin’s goal is to elect “450 pre-selected people” in the State Duma elections.
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He said that the authorities have already determined the future deputies and distributed mandates among “United Russia,” the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and other parties.
“Since 2007, this plan has basically worked for them. There are isolated cases when individual communists won in electoral districts because they did not coordinate their candidacy with the Kremlin, but these are rare cases,” B. Nadezhdin noted.
The politician, who wanted to run for the Russian presidency, believes that now “the wind is blowing into the sails of the opposition,” and the behavior of the “obedient and trained” State Duma parties may change as the regime weakens — a similar process, he said, he already observed in the late 1980s–early 1990s.
15min reminds that the man was detained on Monday afternoon. A protocol was drawn up against him for “displaying extremist symbols” (Article 20.3, Part 1 of the Administrative Offenses Code). Initially, it was expected that the court would consider the protocol on Monday, but in the evening the case review was postponed until Friday.
The reason for the prosecution was a reference to Elvira Vichareva’s video “Candidate against Putin 2024,” which B. Nadezhdin posted on his “Telegram” channel. The video showed a photo of Alexei Navalny.
The protocol states that Navalny was the leader of the Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Citizens’ Rights Defense Foundation. These organizations are recognized as “extremist” in Russia.
Under the article for “displaying extremist symbols,” B. Nadezhdin faces a fine or up to 15 days of arrest.
The protocol was drawn up three days after the Ministry of Justice recognized him as a “foreign agent.”
A representative of the Central Election Commission explained to the propaganda news agency TASS that a candidate who was granted “foreign agent” status during the election campaign has the right to continue collecting signatures. However, to register, he must achieve removal from the Ministry of Justice’s register.
Applying responsibility under the article for “displaying extremist symbols” will deprive B. Nadezhdin of the right to be elected for a year.
