In a town just outside Moscow where he runs his anti-war election campaign, Boris Nadezhdin spent the week considering what to do next as authorities ramped up pressure on him: flee Russia, or risk going to prison. In the end, authorities made the decision for him, banning him from leaving a day before he was due in court.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Nadezhdin, 63, hoped to stand as an independent in September’s parliamentary elections on a platform of ending Moscow’s over four-year war with Ukraine -- accompanied in Russia with huge censorship and repression. But he was arrested on Monday and now faces protracted legal proceedings that could land him in prison. He rose to fame in 2024, when he attempted to run against President Vladimir Putin in presidential elections, and more than two years later does not mince words about the Russian leader. “We must tell people the truth, we must tell them that the course Putin is steering the country on is a path towards chaos -- and perhaps, God forbid, even toward disaster,” he told AFP outside his home in the town of Dolgoprudny. He spoke two days before he was due in court on extremism charges -- slapped on him after he was detained, on top of a “foreign agent” label authorities imposed on him. In many ways, Nadezhdin -- whose name is a variation of the word “hope” in Russian -- is surprised at how long he’s managed to stay free in Russia. In 2024, he encouraged scores of Russians to collect signatures in support of his candidacy against Putin -- who does not tolerate opposition.