“We must choose someone else”
‘We must elect someone other than Putin and everything will be fine’: In the middle of a program on Kremlin-controlled broadcaster NTV, a former Russian MP called for a change of government and a replacement for Vladimir Putin, causing displeasure on the set, an excerpt published in shared on social networks.
“With the current political regime, we have no chance of joining Europe. We must elect another government that will end this history with Ukraine and establish normal relations with European countries, and everything will return to normal,” argued Boris Nadezhdin, a former ally of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal opponent of Vladimir Putin who was murdered in 2015. Across from him, a propagandist tried to contradict him, while the presenter pouted, “We expect 100% of this speech, which he thought it was.” boring”.
This is not the first time that Boris Nadezhdin has openly criticized the war in Ukraine and the decisions of the Russian leader in general. He is one of the few dissenting voices heard on pro-Kremlin television. As early as September 2022, he considered it “impossible to defeat Ukraine with current methods” and instead advocated “starting peace talks”.
In an interview with the BBC in early May, he also said that “war is not deeply rooted in Russian society” and that the youngest in particular “are more skeptical about the conflict”. As for his own safety, he claimed to have started criticizing Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the century, but admitted he was “a little” afraid for his own life.