Would-be Putin challenger Duntsova barred from running in election, says campaign team

Former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has been barred from running against President Vladimir Putin in an election next March because of "mistakes" in her application to register as a candidate, her campaign channel said on Telegram.

The move came only three days after Duntsova, 40, had applied to the electoral commission to be registered as a candidate. She had planned to run on a platform of ending the war in Ukraine and freeing political prisoners.

A video posted by a Russian news channel showed a meeting of the central electoral commission at which its members voted unanimously not to allow Duntsova's candidacy to go ahead. The immediate torpedoing of Duntsova's campaign will be seized on by Putin's critics as evidence that no one with genuine opposition views will be allowed to stand against him in the first presidential election since he launched the war in Ukraine. They see it as a fake process with only one possible outcome.

The Kremlin says Putin will win because he enjoys genuine support across society, with opinion poll ratings of around 80 per cent.