Pro-peace Russian parliamentary candidate Yulia Kuznetsova says she’s home and voted after disappearing days before the election. She still hasn’t fully explained what happened.
Yulia Kuznetsova, a Greens party candidate for the State Duma, says she’s back home. She stopped responding to messages and calls on the evening of September 17.
“I’m back home, and my husband and I are fine. I was also able to vote at my polling station. Thank you all for your support,” read a message posted to Kuznetsova’s Telegram channel, along with a photo of her at a polling station.
Her allies confirmed that Kuznetsova and her husband are at home. “They’re fine. To avoid putting anyone at risk, we’re declining to comment further. They’re free, and that’s what matters,” her support team said.
Kuznetsova disappeared on the evening of September 17 after meeting with voters in Sokolniki. Her allies had reported her missing. They said police later contacted them and suggested they call off the search.
On September 18, Kuznetsova posted a video saying that she and her husband were “fine” and that she had “had a pretty difficult conversation” the day before. She didn’t say whom she had spoken with or what they had discussed. Her allies said she still hadn’t contacted them when the video went up, and they believed she had recorded it under pressure.
Kuznetsova hasn’t said what happened to her over the past three days. She told Meduza, “All I can say is that I had a nervous breakdown and my husband took me away to get some rest.”
Kuznetsova is running for the State Duma as the Greens candidate in Moscow’s Babushkinsky single-member district, under the slogan “For life, peace, and freedom.” Smart Voting, a project of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, recommended that voters support her.
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