Vladimir Putin is expected to easily win next month’s vote. (document)

Registration of candidates for Russia’s March presidential election has ended, with the list including expected winner Vladimir Putin and three politicians who support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported on Sunday.

The list does not include Russian anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin after the Central Election Commission (CEC) banned him from running on Thursday, saying he was in the process of gathering signatures needed to support his candidacy. Defect found.

The Central Election Commission registered Vladislav Davankov, deputy chairman of the Russian Duma and member of the New People’s Party caucus; Leonid Slutsky, an extremist loyal to the Kremlin Leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR); and Communist Party candidate Nikolay Kharitonov.

Putin, 71, who has chosen to run as an independent rather than as a candidate for the ruling United Russia party, has been Russia’s top leader since 2000 and controls all the levers of the country and is expected to win easily next month’s vote.

While no one expected Nadezhdin, 60, who described Putin’s war in Ukraine as a “fatal mistake” to win, his sharp criticism surprised some analysts. The Kremlin said it did not consider him a serious rival to Putin.

Nadezdin said on Thursday he would challenge the CEC’s decision to Russia’s Supreme Court.

The war, which the Kremlin calls a “special military operation,” is nearing its second year. It has killed thousands on both sides, displaced millions of Ukrainians and reduced dozens of cities and villages to rubble.

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