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Russian oppositionist leader Navalny announces presidential bid

Source: Navalny

Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny has announced his intention to run for president in Russia’s 2018 elections, said his colleague Leonid Volkov in an interview with Meduza on Tuesday. Navalny also launched his campaign website Navalny 2018

Alexei Navalny's official twitter page

Navalny wrote a letter in which he said: “I am aware of how difficult it will be to resist the current government with its falsifications and propaganda machine. I understand very well that even becoming a candidate will not be easy for me.”

According to Navalny, the 2018 election should be one that decides the path of Russia’s development. The oppositionist maintains that his platform is better than that proposed by the Kremlin. “I’m not afraid to call a spade a spade, to expose not only the ‘system’, but specific people too,” said Navalny.

Alexei Navalny acquired the right to participate in Russia’s 2018 elections after country’s Supreme Court overturned his verdict in the Kirovles case.

In 2013, Alexey Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov received suspended sentences on charges of embezzlement in the Kirovles case. In November 2016, Russia's Supreme Court overturned the suspended sentences issued against the trail's defendants in light of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which found no violations. A retrial for the Kirovles case began on December 5, 2016.

Russia’s presidential elections will be held in March 2018.

In 2013, Navalny ran in Moscow’s municipal elections for the post of mayor. He won 27 percent of the vote, losing to Sergei Sobyanin, who won about 51 percent of the vote.

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