Yekaterina Duntsova, who is willing to run in opposition to Vladimir Putin in Russia’s next presidential election, rejected boldly on Thursday that she was backed by a previous oil boss who runs an opposition movement from abroad. Reporting on Duntsova’s formal bid to enter the race on Wednesday, the state news agency RIA described her as “helped and financed by fugitive oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (foreign agent)”. “Foreign agent” is a tag applied by Russian authorities to activists and opposition figures they recognise to be prominently involved in perilous political activity financed from outside the nation. Khodorkovsky was the billionaire head of oil firm Yukos but fell foul of Putin and spent 10 years in jail on fraud charges, which he rejected, before being released in 2013.
He is presently staying in London and leads an opposition alliance called Open Russia. Representatives for Khodorkovsky could not at the same time be reached for remark. The wording used by RIA was a first indication of the obstacles Duntsova will encounter in obtaining balanced, let alone favourable, coverage of her long-shot presidential bid from state media loyal to the Kremlin. In an interview on Thursday with an opposition YouTube channel, “Chestnoye Slovo” (Honest Word), the former TV journalist said RIA’s description was an invention. She said she had “no direct link” to Khodorkovsky.
The allegation may have been based, she said, on the fact that her candidacy was supported by Anastasia Burakova, the head of a project called Kovcheg (The Ark) that Khodorkovsky founded to help people who have gone to Russia because they oppose the war in Ukraine. Burakova was designated a “foreign agent” soon after Duntsova declared she had the willingness to run in opposition to Putin. In the interview, Duntsova avoided criticising Putin directly. But she said there was certain “stagnation” in Russia after 24 years of his rule. “Prices are increasing in an extraordinary fashion practically every day,” she revealed. “The stability they tell us about doesn’t altogether relate to reality.”