Nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin announces founding of party said to be a future spoiler

11:11 am, January 28, 2020

The prose writer Zakhar Prilepin has announced that he will be formally founding a political party based on the nationalist movement “For Truth,” which he created in October 2019.

The new party’s founding congress will take place on February 1.

In early January, two other new parties formed in advance of Russia’s 2021 State Duma election: the Direct Democracy Party founded by World of Tanks creator Vyacheslav Makarov and an as-yet-unnamed party led by the founder of the sales company Faberlic.

Meduza spoke with a number of expert and insider sources at the time who agreed that the purpose of these new parties is to split the opposition vote across the political spectrum while potentially introducing new Putin-loyalist factions into the Duma. One source explicitly cited For Truth as an example of a spoiler party focused on the former effect.

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