EIt's cold, dark and damp, slush soaks your shoes, but the line of people is getting longer and longer. Many come here straight after work. They wait by lantern light in front of an old building on Fuhrmann Alley in the center of Moscow to sign for Boris Nadjeschdin so that he can run in Russia's presidential elections in mid-March.

The 60-year-old with a beard and glasses from Dolgoprudnyj near the capital, who usually appears in a large checkered jacket, is the only one among the three already approved candidates and eight candidate candidates who speaks out against the war in Ukraine and as a “fundamental opponent of the current president's policies ” designated. Anyone queuing here is already making a statement that has not been seen from Russia for a long time.

“Russia, it’s not just one person,” says a young man in line, his black cap pulled low over his face, in reference to the long-time ruler Vladimir Putin. “We sign because we can, legally and without being hit with a baton.” He doesn't want to say more, saying it is “dangerous to talk to foreigners.”

Nadjezhdin does not want to challenge military censorship

But for many others, the opportunity to sign for a politician feels like a liberation. Like a young woman, you speak of the good feeling of “not being alone”. Sometimes passers-by even shout a thank you to the crowd. “It's nice to be able to express my opinion,” says a thirty-year-old with a reddish-brown hipster beard. “It's the only way to do anything at all. I don't just want to sit on the sofa and watch – the two hours I invest here aren't too much.” Working in the IT sector brought him to Moscow from Siberia, and when he compares the living standards, “they are the different countries”. This grievance is an important topic for him, and the “SWO” is once again a “special topic”.

The war of aggression against Ukraine is officially still called a “military special operation” in Russia; the abbreviation or other descriptions are usually used. Nadjezhdin is also careful not to challenge military censorship and not to provide prosecutors with an excuse. When the candidate recently met with women campaigning for the return of their husbands who had been drafted into the mobilization, he warned them to choose their words more carefully.

But ending the “SWO” is a key point in the “manifesto” on his campaign page: none of its goals have been achieved and “cannot be achieved without enormous damage to the economy and an irreparable blow to Russia's demographics,” it says. Russia is slipping into “medieval feudalism” and risks becoming a “vassal of China”. While hundreds were waiting in front of his staff in Moscow's Fuhrmann-Gasse on Wednesday evening alone, the politician was doing one of his live streams with guests. This time it's about the Russians having too few children and dying too early. Nadjezhdin says “terrible trillions” of government money should not be spent on “this military task” but on family support and health. The “hate, death and violence propaganda” on state television must end. “You have to propagate life, love, explain to people that we were born to live long and happy lives, and not to live short lives live and also disturb others in the process”.