Russian opposition politician Yekaterina Duntsova has been detained in the city of Tver, according to her associates from the initiative “Rassvet” (Dawn). They say police entered an event dedicated to writing letters to political prisoners and took Duntsova to the central police station for questioning. The reasons for her detention have not been officially disclosed, and other participants were not detained. Duntsova was released later the same evening.
Duntsova is a journalist and former member of the city council in Rzhev, a town in Russia’s Tver region in the country’s northwest. She gained broader public attention in late 2023 when she announced her intention to run in the presidential election. She positioned herself as an anti-war candidate calling for political change in Russia. Despite limited resources and minimal access to mainstream media, her campaign attracted notable public interest and support from part of the electorate.
However, Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to allow her to collect the signatures required for official registration, citing procedural shortcomings in her documents. As a result, she was effectively barred from participating in the election.
Afterwards, Duntsova attempted to register a political party under the name “Rassvet”. The Russian Ministry of Justice denied the registration on formal grounds. A similar pattern had previously been observed in the case of Alexei Navalny, who for years faced administrative and judicial obstacles that prevented him from registering his political organisation and running in elections. This was followed by short-term detentions, arrests, criminal prosecution, an attempted poisoning, a conviction for “extremism” and ultimately his killing in a penal colony.
In May 2024, the Ministry of Justice designated Duntsova as a “foreign agent”, a label that entails additional reporting requirements, financial scrutiny and significant public stigma.
Her latest detention comes amid continued pressure on opposition figures in Russia, particularly those who publicly question the war in Ukraine or seek to engage through electoral and institutional channels.