Boris Nadezhdin, little known to most people in Russia, declared he was the anti-war candidate, and Russians stood in lines to support him. Screenshot from YouTube video on the Khodorkovsky life YouTube channel. Fair use. Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova happened to be the main figures of the Russian elections in March 2024, although neither of them are going to be on the ballot. On the February 8, the second anti-war candidate, after Duntsova, Nadezhdin was banned from elections. No one had anticipated any good news around the re-election of Vladimir Putin, who has been in power (as president and — briefly — prime minister of Russia from 2008 to 2012) for 24 years. While, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2024, at least some glimpses of opposition media and civil society were still visible in Putin’s autocracy, the two years of ongoing repression since seem to have either squeezed every last drop dissenter out of the country or imprisoned them. All protests were prohibited, independent media and social media shut down (apart from YouTube and Telegram, there are only Russia-based social media platforms that are heavily censored). Putin has been running his elections with fake competitors for at least a dozen years. This time, it was going to be the same, with only candidates approved by the Kremlin being able to participate not only in the elections themselves but also the pre-election period of gathering signatures in support of candidates. However, something went wrong. First, a former journalist from a very small city in Russia, Rzev, announced she wanted to be a candidate, and that she was against the Russia–Ukraine war. In a matter of weeks, Yekaterina Duntsova became well-known to hundreds of thousands of people (mostly through the support of opposition media in exile) but she was not even allowed to collect signatures. On December 23, 2023, the Central Election Commission (CEC) blocked her from running on the ballot after rejecting her nomination documents. For a while it seemed that unpleasant surprises had ended for the Kremlin. Yekaterina Duntsova. Screenshot of YouTube video by DW Russian YouTube channel. Fair use However, suddenly, a candidate who supposedly had been allowed to run alongside Putin, one of the same cohort of liberals in the 90s as Sergey Kirienko (now running Putin’s campaign) and Boris Nemtsov (murdered, allegedly on Putin’s orders, in 2015), announced he was also an anti-war candidate. Boris Nadezhdin, whether he wished for it or not, then received overwhelming support. The Russian opposition — journalists, politicians and academics in exile —asked people to support him. The opposition media in exile, even that run by politicians (such as Khodorkovsky or Navalny‘s supporters), is now playing the role of both Russian opposition and civil society. They still have a big reach in the country through YouTube, Telegram and those tech savvy Russians that know how to use VPN. Here is a video from TV channel Rain (Dozhd) about people standing in lines to sign to bring Nadezhdin to the election ballot. When all ofthe opposition, united for once, announced their support, people in Russia went to Nadezhdin’s offices (every candidate usually has a network of offices around the country to gather signatures in their support to run) to give their signatures in support of the only anti-war candidate. This was a very brave thing to do, because being anti-war is currently viewed as a crime in Russia. But this was the only legitimate way to protest without being thrown in jail, and in spite of the fact that people’s signatures were going to be given to the authorities (the purpose of gathering signatures was to give them to the Central Election Commission), they still went to stand in long lines in order to show their will: The will to end the war, release political prisoners, protect minorities, have dignity, believe that the future is possible. Nadezhdin gathered over 200,000 signatures in various regions of Russia, and many more from those living abroad. These are some of the quotes by the people who were standing in these lines, that Holod media gathered and published, and Global Voices is republishing with permission. Anton, 30 years old, Yekaterinburg: Думаю, главная причина в том, что даже после самой темной ночи обязательно наступит рассвет. И есть ощущение, что перемены придут намного раньше, чем кажется, — достаточно лишь поверить. К сожалению, среди моего ближнего и дальнего круга общения достаточно много людей отчаявшихся, которые не верят в лучшее и перспективы. Я, собственно, и сам вижу потоки негатива, постоянно транслируемого отовсюду, и понимаю внутреннюю апатию людей.