Kremlin critic leaves Moscow for Paris after ban from running for election
Nadezhdin, who attempted to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential election, announced his departure in a video posted on the Telegram messaging service on Monday.
The 63-year-old politician appeared in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, although he did not say whether he intended to remain in France permanently.
“Good news: I'm alive and free. Unfortunately, not in Russia for the time being,” he said, adding that he needed “to look around and figure out life going forward”.
His departure follows several weeks of mounting legal and political pressure that effectively ended his attempt to contest elections for the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.
Nadezhdin was added to Russia's register of “foreign agents” in July – a designation that imposes extensive reporting requirements, brings additional government scrutiny and carries strongly negative connotations inside Russia.
People classified as foreign agents are also barred from standing for elected office.
He was subsequently fined 1,000 roubles – around €11 – for allegedly displaying “extremist symbols”, a charge he dismissed as absurd and politically motivated.
The case concerned a video posted online in 2023 that briefly showed an image of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who died in a Russian prison in February 2024.
Navalny had been convicted on extremism charges that he, his supporters and international observers widely regarded as an attempt to quash his political activities.
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Pressure ahead of elections
The conviction prevented Nadezhdin from collecting the signatures required to appear on the ballot for September's parliamentary elections.
Police had briefly detained him before the court hearing, and he said Russian authorities had also imposed a temporary ban preventing him from leaving the country.
It was not immediately clear whether that restriction was subsequently lifted or how he was able to travel to France.
Nadezhdin initially said he would continue his parliamentary campaign despite the foreign agent designation, arguing that the measures against him were intended to remove one of the few remaining publicly visible opponents of the war in Ukraine.
He later acknowledged that the combined legal obstacles had made it impossible for him to continue the campaign.
The ruling United Russia party is seeking to maintain its commanding majority in the State Duma in the September vote.
Its principal nominal challengers include the Communist Party and several smaller parties which frequently support the Kremlin on major legislation and foreign policy.
The election campaign comes as the authorities face signs of public fatigue over the war in Ukraine, alongside economic pressures and fuel shortages linked partly to Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
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Rare anti-war presidential campaign
Nadezhdin emerged as an unexpectedly prominent figure ahead of the March 2024 presidential election, after openly calling for an end to the war.
Thousands of people queued at campaign offices across Russia in January 2024 to sign documents supporting his candidacy, creating one of the most visible demonstrations of anti-war sentiment since the full-scale invasion began two years earlier.
His campaign gathered more than the 100,000 signatures required to register as a presidential candidate.
However, Russia's Central Election Commission rejected his application after ruling that more than 9,000 of the signatures submitted were invalid. The Supreme Court later upheld the decision, keeping him off the ballot.
Putin faced only token opposition in the election and secured a fifth presidential term.
Nadezhdin's relatively moderate political background had allowed him to remain in Russia longer than many other prominent Putin critics, even as he became increasingly outspoken against the war.
Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian authorities have sharply restricted independent reporting, public protest and criticism of the armed forces.