Boris Nadezhdin, the only opponent of the offensive in Ukraine, who tried to register his candidacy in the Russian presidential election in March, said in an interview with AFP on Wednesday that he hoped the election would be the “beginning of the end” of Vladimir Putin. .

“I know that it will be difficult to defeat Putin on March 17 this year,” he told AFP, “but I hope that March 17 may mean the end, the beginning of the end of the Putin era,” he added.

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The Kremlin said on Wednesday it does not consider Boris Nadezhdin, a former opposition lawmaker who wants to run for president with an anti-war message, to be a serious challenger to President Vladimir Putin, Reuters reported.

Currently, 60-year-old Nadeytin is trying to collect 100,000 signatures by the end of January in order to be a registered candidate in the March 15-17 presidential elections.

In recent days, some Russians who oppose the “special operation” in Ukraine have lined up coldly to put their signatures in support of it.

Asked on Wednesday whether Nadezhdin was a rival who posed a political threat to Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We don’t see him as a rival at all. Any citizen has the right to run for president if he meets a number of conditions.”