Boris Nadezhdin

Boris Borisovich Nadezhdin (Борис Борисович Надеждин; born 26 April 1963) is a Russian opposition politician.

In 1969, he was brought by his parents to the city of Dolgoprudny where his father studied at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), and his mother was a student at the Moscow Conservatory.

For five generations in the Nadezhdin family, all men bore the name Boris.

His paternal grandfather was a Soviet Uzbek composer and associate professor at the Tashkent Conservatory.

His maternal grandfather fled to Uzbekistan from Ukraine after the October Revolution.

In 1979 he won the second prize at the All-Union Mathematical Olympiad among high school students.

That year, he graduated from the Specialized Boarding School No. 18 for Physics and Mathematics at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.

In 1985, he graduated with honors from MIPT.

From 1985 to 1990, he was an engineer and researcher at the All-Union Research Center for the Study of Surface and Vacuum Properties.

He served in the State Duma from 1999 to 2003.

He was also a municipal councillor in Moscow and was considered to be a close ally of murdered opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.

In November 2023, Nadezhdin announced his candidacy in the 2024 Russian presidential election.

He was subsequently barred from running in the election by the Central Election Commission, which claimed to have found "irregularities" in signatures supporting his candidacy.

Nadezhdin was born in Tashkent, Soviet Uzbekistan.

He survived the Tashkent earthquake, which occurred on his third birthday.

Nadezhdhin served in the 3rd convocation of the State Duma from 1999 to 2003.

He ran in the 2003 Russian legislative election from the 109th Mytishchi district of the Moscow Oblast.

He lost the election to the former commander of the Moscow District of Internal Troops, Arkady Baskayev (People's Party of the Russian Federation).

The Union of Right Forces party, of which Nadezhdin was a member, also lost the elections.

At the same time, elections were held for the Dolgoprudny Council of Deputies, in which the City of Hope bloc, under the patronage of Nadezhdin, also lost.

In August 2005, Nadezhdin was a member of the initiative group for the nomination of the former head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to the State Duma in the by-elections for the 201st University District of Moscow.

The nomination did not take place due to the entry into force of the verdict in the first criminal case against Yukos.

In March 2007, Nadezhdin was a Union of Right Forces candidate in the Moscow Regional Duma elections.

According to the results announced by the regional election commission, the party lost the elections.

However, Nadezhdin said that, according to his data, the Union of Right Forces had overcome the seven percent barrier:

"'The figure of 7.08 percent was posted on the website of the Central Election Commission, and it was even shown on TV, and then the election commission announced that we have 6.9 percent. This difference was simply stolen from us!'"

Nadezhdin accused the vice-governor of the Moscow Oblast, Alexei Panteleyev, of fraud (according to Nadezhdin, the results were adjusted in favor of United Russia).

From 6 November 2008 to 2011, Nadezhdin was a member of the Federal Political Council of the Right Cause party.

On 3 August 2011, Nadezhdin, as leader of the Moscow Oblast branch of Right Cause, said in an interview: "In the Moscow Oblast branch, we definitely want to deal with the "Russian" question."

According to him, he had already held several round tables on this issue with the participation of nationalists, "And that’s why officers and young skinheads are now joining my department en masse."

He referred to certain studies, according to which, in the last few years, about 400,000 people from the southern regions of Russia have moved to the Moscow Oblast for permanent residence.

Arguing his position, Nadezhdin emphasized that "The Moscow Oblast is Russian land."

Party leader Mikhail Prokhorov reacted quite sharply to these statements.

Prokhorov wrote on his blog, "We have not included any nationalists in any party lists and will not include them. Right Cause will not deal with any nationalist movements."

Some party members proposed expelling Nadezhdin from the party.

In the 2011 Russian legislative election, Nadezhdin refused to enter the top three of the federal election list of Right Cause but headed the party’s list in the elections to the Moscow Oblast Duma.

On 26 December 2011, Nadezhdin left Right Cause, explaining his decision by the desire to create a new right-wing party together with the former head of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Alexei Kudrin.

In February 2012, in the leadup to the 2012 Russian presidential election, Nadezhdin sent an offer to become an authorized representative to the election headquarters of all presidential candidates, including Vladimir Putin.

Nadezhdin explained this by the desire to be able to appoint observers to polling stations.

He failed to become Putin's authorized representative but became Putin's observer.