Meet Boris Nadezhdin, Vladimir Putin’s brave challenger
Backing him is a form of protest
“Idon’t have the charisma of Alexei Navalny or Boris Nemtsov. You can’t make Che Guevara out of me, no matter how hard you try. I have no illusions and don’t pretend to be a hero, God forbid. But it just so happened…” So speaks Boris Nadezhdin, a portly 60-year-old in glasses, a former physicist who spent the past 30 years inside Russian politics, mostly as someone’s deputy or aide, attracting little attention from the wider public.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “A tame runner turns a bit wild”
Europe February 3rd 2024
From the February 3rd 2024 edition
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