Russian presidential election | Lehti: The moles that infiltrated the war opponent's campaign camp damaged thousands of supporter cards

Russian presidential Vladimir Putin of a war opponent aspiring to be an election challenger Boris Nadezhdin the campaign staff is divided and infiltrated by opponents, claims a Russian opposition newspaper operating in exile Novaya Gazeta.

According to the newspaper, the moles who support Putin and the invasion of Ukraine have defaced thousands of supporter cards collected by Nadezhdin's support forces and mixed invalid fakes among the real supporter cards. The newspaper bases its claims on numerous interviews with anonymous persons participating in the campaign.

Nadezhdin submitted the required 105,000 supporter cards for inspection by the Central Election Commission of Russia on Wednesday of last week. A candidate's campaign representative Igor Artyomov told on Monday that the board has rejected more than 15 percent of the 60,000 supporter cards it checked.

This would mean that Nadezhdin will not be able to run for the Russian presidential election next month.

The Central Election Commission was supposed to announce on Wednesday whether the supporters' signatures will be accepted. Chairman of the board Ella Pamfilova on Tuesday promised Nadeždin one more day to clarify the ambiguities. The deadline therefore ends on Thursday.

Russia has declared the newspaper currently published under the name Novaya Gazeta Europa as an “undesirable actor” in Russia. According to the newspaper's report, two staffs have been responsible for Nadeždin's campaign and collecting signatures from supporters.

First of all, there has been a “candidate staff” operating in Moscow, where a former activist of the liberal Jabloko party, a lawyer, has played a key role Dmitri Kisiyev. Second, collection and campaign work has been carried out by the party Nadeždin's candidate Kansalaisaaloiite. It has been operating from its headquarters in Moscow.

According to the newspaper, the third staff appeared in the final stages of collecting supporter cards as part of the candidate's campaign. The campaign manager began to manage it Maria Nevelevawho previously worked as a Communist MP Nina Ostanina as an assistant.

Third according to the newspaper, the group established its base in a “cottage” in the village of Rechnik in the Moscow region. There they started to collect fake lists of supporters collected by the activists of the Citizens' Initiative party in several regions. According to the newspaper's sources, they were mixed up with real lists so that thousands or even tens of thousands of forged signatures accumulated.

Allegedly, several well-known members of the radical right appeared at Rechnik's cottage, who took care of checking the cards and who declared themselves as Nadezhdin's friends.

In connection with its story, Novaja Gazeta published the chairman of the Citizens' Initiative party Andrei Nechaev counter to the arguments. According to Nechaev, Novaya Gazeta “suddenly published outrageous lies” about signature forgeries.

“The paper must really want to get rid of its undesirability,” Nechayev concluded his reply, turning the matter so that the independent paper is licking the Russian rulers with its news.

Political There have been news reports in Russia about the spoilers of supporter cards that have infiltrated various campaign teams of the opponents in previous elections as well.

In the case of Nadezhdin, however, the opponents have not been satisfied with recruiting foot laborers collecting autographs. If Novaja Gazeta's claims are true, the entire campaign has been infiltrated.

In this case, the only remaining question is whether the infiltration could have been done without Nadezhdin herself knowing and the candidate not realizing what was going on.