A Putin critic is convicted on charges that will keep him from campaigning for Russia's parliament

By — Associated Press Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/a-putin-critic-is-convicted-on-charges-that-will-keep-him-from-campaigning-for-russias-parliament Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter A Putin critic is convicted on charges that will keep him from campaigning for Russia's parliament World Jul 17, 2026 3:14 PM EDT MOSCOW (AP) — Boris Nadezhdin, who criticized Moscow's military action in Ukraine and tried to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2024 election, was convicted Friday of displaying "extremist symbols" — an action that will keep him out of this year's parliamentary race. The verdict underlined the determination by authorities to stamp out any remaining sign of dissent ahead of September's vote as the fuel crisis caused by Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities across Russia threatened to erode public support for the Kremlin. The charges against Nadezhdin, 63, were based on a 2023 online video in which he briefly showed a picture of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who at that time was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of extremism that were widely seen as politically motivated. Navalny later died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024. READ MORE: EU and Britain target Russian intelligence officers over a major cyberspying campaign Nadezhdin rejected the case against him as absurd and argued authorities were trying to keep him from campaigning in September's parliamentary vote. The court in Dolgoprudny, a town on Moscow's northern outskirts where he lives, convicted him and ordered him to pay a fine of 1,000 rubles (about $13). The Kremlin's main United Russia party is seeking to preserve its dominance in the lower house of parliament in a race against so-called "systemic" opposition, including the Communist Party and a couple of other parties that vote in sync with the Kremlin on key issues. The campaign comes amid signs of growing public fatigue as fuel shortages and economic pain from the Ukraine conflict increase, an environment that reduces the tolerance by the authorities for even token opposition. Nadezhdin's run for parliament triggers a quick response In January 2024, Nadezhdin collected thousands of signatures in his run for president as he openly called for a halt to the fighting in Ukraine. But he was kept off the March 2024 ballot after Russia's Supreme Court ruled that more than 9,000 signatures submitted by his campaign were invalid — enough to disqualify him. Putin faced only token opposition in the election and easily won a fifth term. A veteran politician, Nadezhdin worked in the government in the 1990s when he was an adviser to Sergei Kiriyenko, now a top Putin aide. He also served as a lawmaker and more recently became a member of a municipal council, one of the few remaining liberal voices on Russia's political scene. Last month, Nadezhdin declared his bid to run for the lower house of p