Former Putin challenger is declared bankrupt by Russian court

(Reuters) - Russian opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin, who tried unsuccessfully to run against Vladimir Putin in a presidential election last year, was declared bankrupt by a Moscow court on Thursday, state media reported.

Acting on a petition filed in May 2024 on behalf of Rosenergobank, which itself went bankrupt in 2017, the arbitration court found Nadezhdin had unfulfilled obligations to the bank totalling 77.4 million roubles ($918,700).

The 61-year-old, who held a seat in Russia's parliament from 1999 to 2003, tried to run on an anti-war ticket against Putin in a March 2024 presidential election. But he was barred from standing when the Central Election Commission said it had found irregularities, including names of dead people, in the list of supporters' signatures Nadezhdin had presented in order to register his candidacy.

Nadezhdin had conceded he had "zero" chance of beating Putin, who has led Russia as either president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, but his campaign captured the attention of many voters who opposed the war in Ukraine.

Putin went on to win a fifth term and 87.3% of the vote, a record post-Soviet landslide.

State news agency TASS reported Rosenergobank loaned $324,350 in 2015 to Nadezhdin, who transferred two plots of land to the bank as collateral.

The court has opened a procedure for the sale of Nadezhdin's property, TASS said, citing the case file. Reuters was not able to locate the court documents or contact Nadezhdin for comment.

After the election, Nadezhdin continued to serve as a municipal deputy in Moscow until June 2024, when he stepped down days after Rosenergobank filed its petition to declare him insolvent.

($1 = 84.2500 roubles)

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)