Russia Ukraine war, page-199840

Russian anti-war candidate claims enough support to stand against Putin

An anti-war candidate vying to compete against President Vladimir Putin in the Russian election this year claims he has submitted the required number of signatures in his support.

Boris Nadezhdin needs at least 100,000 signatures across no fewer than 40 regions to be able to stand in the 15-17 March election.

The Central Election Commission will check the authenticity of the 105,000 signatures and announce in February who will join Mr Putin – whose supporters say has collected 3.5 million signatures – on the ballot paper.

Mr Putin is widely expected to win, with Sky News's Moscow correspondent predicting last month he will win with a substantial majority.

But observers have still been surprised by Mr Nadezhdin's open criticism of the invasion of Ukraine.

With Russia recently hit with heating outages over an unusually cold winter, he has argued the country could afford to spend more on its own people if it were not pouring so much finance into the military.

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-news-putin-zelenskyy-latest-live-updates-12541713