Police briefly detain Boris Nadezhdin, a liberal Russian politician and Putin critic

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Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin, known for opposing Moscow's military actions in Ukraine, was briefly detained by police on Monday

MOSCOW -- MOSCOW (AP) — Liberal Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin, known for opposing Moscow's military action in Ukraine and his aspirations to run against President Vladimir Putin in the country’s last presidential vote, was briefly detained by police on Monday.

Nadezhdin, 63, said on his Telegram channel he was taken to a police station in the town of Dolgoprudny on Moscow's northern edge, where he lives. He was released a few hours later and ordered to appear in court later this week on charges of displaying “extremist symbols,” an administrative offense punishable by a fine or a 15-day jail term.

The charges against Nadezhdin were based on a 2023 online interview in which he briefly showed a picture of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was then serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated, according to Zona.media, an independent online outlet.

Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024. Russian authorities said that he became ill after a walk and died from natural causes, but five European countries claimed in a joint statement earlier this year that he was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs.

Russia’s Justice Ministry three days ago named Nadezhdin a “foreign agent,” a designation that carries strong pejorative connotations and brings additional government scrutiny.

Nadezhdin, a former liberal lawmaker who openly called for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine, sought to run against Putin in a 2024 presidential vote. He was barred from the ballot paper after Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that more than 9,000 signatures submitted by Nadezhdin’s campaign were invalid — enough to disqualify him.

He has insisted that he would run for parliament in September's election as an independent candidate, even though the “foreign agent” label bars him from running.

Russian authorities have ramped up their crackdown on dissent and free speech after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, relentlessly targeting rights groups, independent media, members of civil society organizations, LGBTQ+ activists and some religious groups. Hundreds of people have been jailed and thousands of others have fled the country.