Russia’s Communist Party won’t field former deputy Valery Rashkin in State Duma elections — he had sought to return after losing his seat in 2022 over illegal moose hunting
Russia’s Communist Party (KPRF) will not field former deputy Valery Rashkin as a candidate in the upcoming State Duma elections, sources told the Russian business daily Vedomosti. Rashkin’s candidacy was blocked both in a single-member district and on the party list.
Rashkin won a State Duma seat on the KPRF ticket six times, first entering the chamber in 1999. In 2022, shortly after he secured another term in State Duma elections, police stopped him in the Saratov region at the wheel of a car with a dead moose in the trunk. He received a three-year suspended sentence for illegal hunting and lost his seat.
His conviction was expunged in 2024, making him legally eligible to run again. In early June, several outlets including RBC and Vedomosti reported, citing sources, that the KPRF planned to run Rashkin in the Angarsk single-member district in the Irkutsk region.
Meduza reported in early June that the KPRF would decline to field prominent politicians in districts, with sources saying the Kremlin had advised party leadership to “take the edge off competition.”
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