From Kirill Poludon at Kasparov.ru:

Russian voters are not interested in electoral fraud or campaign violations since they have no way of contesting election results. The efforts of one civil group that spent a year collecting signatures for a petition to have the 2011 State Duma election results declared illegitimate has thus been thwarted. Systemic oppositionists have not been any help, either: members of Yabloko, A Just Russia, and the Communist Party have refused to contest the election results and ignored the 13 thousand signatures collected by the group.

On December 14, the Russian Supreme Court threw out a request by five voters to disband the Central Electoral Commission, which confirms Duma election results. In addition to the signatures, the group of activists submitted 60 pages of evidence that the 2011 elections had been fraudulent. Federal Judge Nikolai Tolcheyev, however, was unconvinced, and rejected the request on the basis that the applicants “are contesting acts that do not affect [their own] rights, freedoms, or legal interests.” The activists disagreed.

The group decided to start the petition almost immediately after the controversial elections. “I was outraged,” said journalist Aleksei Torgashev. “But I didn’t want to just go to a rally and yell ‘Putin, go!’ Something concrete needed to be done.”

Leading activist Mikhail Shneyder of the Solidarity opposition movement introduced the idea to send a petition to the Supreme Court during a December 13, 2011, meeting with members of the first mass rally on Bolotnaya Square.

“We collected signatures by hand during rallies and marches. There was a huge torrent of pages of signatures for new elections after a blank form was published in Novaya Gazeta,” Shneyder told Kasparov.ru.

In six months, the group has managed to collect 13,117 in-person signatures. Several hundred were rejected for having insufficient information. The group chose a paper petition instead of an online one to have the added emphasis of the sheer weight of the paper, as well as to prevent critics from complaining about automated electronic signatures.

The activists planned to submit the petition in conjunction with opposition politicians, but members of Yabloko and A Just Russia almost immediately declined to contest the election results.

“We tried to cooperate with the Communist Party. They told us that the suit was being prepared; they constantly dragged it out. But a few days before the one-year limit to contest election results was up, the Communists refused to submit the complaint, even though we know it was ready. And the Communist Party didn’t even accept the election results,” Shneyder said.

“It turns out that it’s not very hard for the Kremlin to make agreements with our oppositionists. The decision to not submit the application to contest the election results was a political one,” claimed activist Grigory Sheyanov.

To prevent the total loss of a year’s worth of work and to deal “humanely” with those who signed the petition, the group decided to turn in a petition with only their names. It was rejected.

“We didn’t expect a different outcome. Yes, there is a legal stipulation that election results can only be contested by candidates. But that’s absurd. We’ll get a definitive decision from the Supreme Court and go to the Constitutional Court so that we can dispute the constitutionality of this position. Nobody before us has done this,” Sheyanov noted.

The activists who have come together over this case are unsure if their group will stay united after the final court appeals are over. In this sense, they are an analogy for the crisis within the entire protest movement.

“At the end of 2011 we found one vector – to protest unjust elections,” explained Aleksandr Rzhavsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Since then, different events superseded this, and the movement fell apart since there’s nothing to unite around. Even the question of political prisoners clashes with other issues.”

Although they largely expect a disappointing court outcome, the activists do not believe they have spent their time in vain. “We brought attention to the lack of legal defense for voters, we showed just how ‘oppositionist’ certain parties are, and we brought the case through to the end.” And they are convinced that, regardless of what provokes the next wave of protests, the horizontal connections and experience with the petition will add “critical mass” to future projects.

Citing an article in the newspaper Vedomosti, the radio station said that the leading party was preparing legislative amendments to this end in response to recent moves by oppositionists in the Duma.

The fate of the deputies would be put in the hands of the Duma Commission on Ethics as well as parliamentary leadership. If the amendments are passed, deputies could be deprived of their status simply for receiving a disciplinary reprimand.

According to the paper, the project is being spearheaded by United Russia Deputy Vladimir Pekhtin, who heads the ethics commission and already previously developed the basics of the amendments. He proposed that deputy mandates be taken away, in particular, for “malicious non-attendance” of legislative sessions, for refusing to disclose salaries, for personal travel abroad on their diplomatic passports, or for making public statements that discredit the parliament or have an “anti-state orientation.”

Currently, deputies can have their status revoked only after being convicted of a crime by a court of law. While the Duma is already closed for the rest of the summer, the measure may be considered as soon as sessions resume.

The idea for the amendment first came after a group of deputies from A Just Russia held a filibuster in June to try and delay the passage of a bill to severely increase fines for violating regulations on public protests. Eventually the measure was passed after the deputies staged a walk-out. Opposition politicians fear that Pekhtin’s measure would allow United Russia to carry out its own purge of the Duma. Speaking to Vedomosti, Communist Party Deputy Vadim Solovyov argued that it would contradict both the spirit and the norms of the Constitution.

Earlier, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin told ITAR-TASS in an interview that the opposition walk-outs constituted a threat to Russia’s parliamentary system.

The upper chamber of Russia’s parliament has voted 132-1 to approve a bill that raises fines 150-fold for people taking part in unsanctioned rallies. The much-debated legislation now needs only the president’s signature to become law.

The Federation Council voted after a short debate, in contrast to the lower house, where MPs discussed it for 11 hours before the pro-Kremlin United Russia rammed it through at midnight.

The opposition factions in the Duma put forward several hundred amendments in an unprecedented attempt to stymie the bill’s passage, reflecting a new willingness to stand up to the Kremlin.

The bill raises fines from the current 2,000 rubles (£40) to 300,000 rubles (£5,970). The legislation has been seen as a response to a series of anti-government protests and aimed at discouraging further street protests challenging Vladimir Putin.

Gazeta.ru has created a helpful infographic for understanding the voting process; we’ve translated it here:

The decision was announced at a press conference on Wednesday, which the oppositionists used to discuss cooperative tactics and strategies. “Under the current conditions, we feel that the December 4 parliamentary elections will be illegitimate,” says the declaration. “We call on citizens to boycott these shameful ‘elections’ in any rational way.”

“We call on all honest citizens to come out on December 4 to protests that will be held on the central squares of Russia’s cities and villages,” the declaration goes on.

Among the signees to the document were Solidarity co-leader Garry Kasparov, the organization’s political council organizer Denis Bilunov, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, Islamic Committee of Russia founder Geydar Dzhemal, and leading activists Yury Mukhin, Anatoly Baranov, and Aleksandr Krasnov.

Garry Kasparov said that Russians must ignore the elections and begin building a parallel political reality using contemporary technology, referring to Leonid Volkov’s internet project “Democracy 2.”

Aleksandr Krasnov proposed using December 4 not as an election day, but as the beginning of an act of civil disobedience that would end with the resignation of the ruling authorities. He insisted that the creation of a new political reality is only possible once the current one has been destroyed.

To express their discontent with the illegitimacy of the elections, Krasnov noted that voters can also de-register to strip themselves of voting rights or obtain, but not use, absentee ballots (which in Russia are available from polling stations) to symbolize that they will not be participating.

Anatoly Baranov argued that the only way to carry out the boycott is for every citizen to take their absentee ballot and bring it out to a protest.

A recent survey carried out by the Levada Center showed that more than half of Russians don’t believe that the upcoming elections will be free or fair. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they were certain that the December 4 proceedings will be no more than an imitation of an election and that the government determines who will hold seats in the State Duma.

The Prime Minister arrived at the State Duma altogether two minutes late. His arrival, as is customary, came along with heightened security measures: in front of the main entrance, federal security officers demanded that drivers remove their vehicles from the parking lot. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s luxury Maybach was among the victims. Reinforced police squadrons could be seen all the way from the Okhotny Ryad metro station, but police officers were deathly silent in response to questions from bewildered Muscovites as to whether or not there’d been a terrorist attack.

In his address, which was constantly interrupted by enthusiastic applause from State Duma deputies, Putin did not fail to bring attention to his traditional political topics. In particular, he remarked upon “the destabilization of the entire region,” a transparent hint at the unrest across the Arab world, where “economic and state infirmity is inevitably resulting in a threat to sovereignty.”

“If you’re weak, somebody will drive to you or fly to you and tell you what side to move to without fail. And behind such benevolent and unobtrusive advice – behind this is blatant interference in the internal affairs of different states,” said Putin, hinting at the civil war in Libya.

“Modernization is something that needs to be concentrated on,” Putin went on, echoing Medvedev’s choice topic. But he then followed to enter into a certain polemic with the president, noting that in the course of the development of Russia’s competitiveness and innovative industries, it needs neither “unjustified liberalism” nor “social demagogy,” as this “will distract from development.”

Speaking about the competitiveness of the country over the next ten years, Putin said that Russia should become one of the top five global economies and double its productivity. Putin returned several times to the topics of the development of high-tech and science-driven industries, special economic zones, technology parks, and foreign investment in the Russian economy – the amount of which could, in Putin’s words, reach $60-70 billion a year if administrative and customs barriers were removed. The first steps to create a unified economic space from Lisbon to the Pacific Ocean with a continental market in the trillions of euros, he said, is the creation of a united energy complex and the abolition of the visa regime with the European Union, which Russia is prepared to do.

Summing up the results of his work in the past year, Putin said that Russia’s main achievement in 2010 was that there was no serious upheaval during the global crisis. He noted the economic problems in Portugal, Greece and Iceland, which were forced to seek external financial help, and then gave the example of Russia, where GDP rose 4% in the past year. “The highest percentage among the G-8 countries,” he said.

The prime minister also touched on a number of high-profile events in 2010. About twenty minutes was dedicated to the summer drought. Putin noted that the country coped with the forest fires and their consequences much more successfully than they did in the 1930s. Thanking the Ministry of Emergency Situations, military troops and volunteers, he expounded upon the merits of the government’s efforts to distribute new housing to victims of the fires and to provide credit to farmers, as well as other measures that helped people survive the drought better than Russians did during the Stalin era.

The motif of the Stalinist era came up a second time in Putin’s address when he spoke of the tragedy in the Raspadskaya mine and the need to modernize industry.

“We need a new wave of industrial development in Russia,” Putin proclaimed, before criticizing federal television channels for rarely showing examples of the conscientious and heroic labor of the working man.

Anticipating questions by deputies that had been announced earlier, Putin spoke about support of the domestic automobile industry, defense industry, aviation and the agro-industrial complex. This part of the report was socially-oriented and dedicated to state support for these industries.

According to Putin, the government plans to allocate 20 trillion rubles (712.2 billion USD) for the development of the defense industry. “It’s scary to say such figures out loud,” Putin said, noting that these funds should go to domestic businesses and that only new technologies should be acquired from abroad. Putin reassured the deputies that the distribution of these funds to the defense complex does not mean that Russia is planning to go to war with anyone, but has to do with the need to upgrade obsolete systems.

As is traditional, the prime minister dedicated a great deal of time to social politics, speaking about state programs to create new jobs, support for women and the disabled, health care, raising pensions, and reducing unemployment from 7 million at the peak of the crisis to 5 million in 2010.

The address lasted nearly three hours.

A group of political analysts interviewed by Kasparov.ru concluded that the prime minister’s address makes it look as if Putin is preparing to run for a third term for president in 2012.

Gregory Satarov, president of the Indem research foundation:
“This wasn’t a prime ministerial address, but more so an address by the director of a sanatorium for high-ranked psychos in for follow-up care. He told them what the situation is with the toilets, the barns, the sewers, and the address had nothing to do with Russia, although the psychos in follow-up care are going to like it.

“Putin said who the money is going to be dished out to and in what amounts. So it was entirely a pre-election speech.”

Sergei Ryzhenkov, political analyst and editor-in-chief of Demagogiya.ru:
“Putin’s report can be seen both as an electoral speech for himself and one from United Russia. But most of all it was his pre-electoral programme. He’s stylizing the speech of [Imperial Prime Minister Pyotr] Stolypin, promising 10 years of stable development. Putin himself came alive, the steely notes in his voice came back, there was certainty. All signals indicate that he’s going to run in the election.”

Olga Mefodeva, analyst from the Center for Political Technologies:
“These were strategic remarks, precisely in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s style. The address concerned various topics and was directed at a wide circle of people so that there’d be more of a public reaction. Putin showed that he has his own point of view.”

Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst, president of the Institute of National Strategy:
“Putin’s report can be seen as part of President Dmitri Medvedev’s electoral campaign, because Putin has once again positioned himself as an anti-modernization conservative. All liberal and progressive people should grasp at their hearts and say “Bloody Putin is returning” and run to vote for Medvedev. That is to say, the project of the ‘lesser evil’, where the lesser evil is represented by Medvedev, continues to come unwound.

“As far as the content of the report is concerned, it needs to be analyzed by a psychiatrist. Everything that Putin isn’t doing, didn’t think and doesn’t plan to do – he named it in this programme. First he says that it’s necessary to turn away from dangerous liberal experiments and social demagogy, and then he speaks in favor of ‘Strategy 2020,’ which was developed by Rector Vladimir Mau from the Academy of National Economy and Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov of the Higher School of Economics.

“Mau and Kuzminov propose abandoning the pension system, abolishing export duties on raw materials, and eliminating the mining industry. What is that if not a dangerous liberal experiment and social demagogy?

“There’s the impression that Putin doesn’t know what his government is doing.”

Compiled by reports from Gazeta.ru and Kasparov.ru.

The vote was split down party lines, with the Kremlin-backed United Russia party voting as a bloc in favor of the bill. All deputies from the three other parties voted against it.

The bill was introduced by the Russian federal government on April 24. It will allow the FSB to issue preemptive warnings to individuals or groups that the agency suspects of acting in a way that could potentially become “extremist.” Such extremist activity, it claims, is on the rise in Russia today.

Specifically, the legislation will now allow the FSB to employ “special preventative measures” in order to “eliminate causes and conditions that are conducive to the realization of threats to security” and to issue “official warning notifications about the inadmissibility of actions that bring about the creation of causes of, and which create the conditions for, committing crime.”

What does that mean? In principle, it means that the FSB can do whatever it decides must be done to prevent situations that, theoretically, could lead to a crime being committed.

What that’s going to look like in practice remains to be seen. Experts warn that the legislation is so vague that the agency could easily use it to severely impede upon normal social activism and the normal operation of the press, leading to greater self-censorship by anyone critical of government policy. This concern stems from the fact that allegations of extremism are routinely used by Russian law enforcement agents to stifle legal forms of dissent by human rights activists, oppositionists, artists, journalists, and others.

Vladimir Lukin, the federal human rights ombudsman reappointed by President Dmitri Medvedev in 2009, said that the law was dangerous and discredits the FSB. But calls by critics to veto the legislation expect to go unheeded by the president, as it was the federal government that introduced the bill in the first place.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty sums up the primary controversies over the bill:

Russian media sources say the law would allow the FSB to warn citizens that their behavior could create conditions that could lead to a crime — even in cases where there are no legal grounds to hold them criminally responsible. It also provides for fines against citizens who disobey FSB officials or in any way hinder their work.

According to an explanatory note posted on the State Duma’s website, the law is necessary due to a sharp rise in extremist activity. The note cites figures from the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor-General’s Office claiming that extremist crimes rose by 30 percent from 2007 to 2008.

The note also criticized the media for propagating “individualism, violence, and mistrust of the state’s capacity to protect its citizens, effectively drawing young people to extremist activities.”

Ilya Ponomarev, a lawmaker from the Duma faction of A Just Russia, calls this hyperbole, saying that the government’s figures on extremist activity are inflated.

“They often label absolutely normal social activists as extremists,” Ponomarev says. “And when the authorities are faced with a real threat to public safety they are helpless. Neither preemptive warnings nor fines will solve this problem.”

There is no shortage of examples of the Russian authorities using accusations of extremism as an excuse to stifle dissent. Federal officials routinely harass protesters, conduct raids of homes and offices, hinder legal forms of protest, and in some cases will block opposition websites, not to mention the torture accusations from Amnesty International.

Speaking to the newspaper Kommersant, Lev Levinson of the Russian non-governmental Institute for Human Rights said that the bill would shift responsibilities currently held by state prosecutors to the police, a move he said was both unnecessary and dangerous. “This is precisely what the fight against dissent is apparently turning into,” he said. “That today the chekisti (referring to the FSB) don’t have the authority to issue warnings doesn’t mean in the least that there aren’t feasible ways to prevent crime.” Levinson added that while prosecutors act as a sieve to prevent abuses when issuing warnings about extremism, the FSB would not.

All in all, said Levinson, the initiative would “untie the hands of FSB officers,” and abuses by the agency can consequently be expected to grow.

In a statement responding to the Moscow metro bombings, Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front reminded readers of the steps taken over the past ten years by the Russian government in the name of fighting terrorism and extremism, pointing out that, given the bombings, they have not been ideally effective.

The tragic events that occurred in Moscow on March 29, 2010, could be appropriated by the current government for an even larger infringement of the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation. The apartment bombings in Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk in the fall of 1999 triggered the beginning of a second military campaign in Chechnya and immediately provided Vladimir Putin with the necessary ratings for victory in the 2000 presidential elections. As a result of the terrorist attacks in the Dubrovka Theater in October 2002 and in Beslan in September 2004, elections for governors and regional leaders in Russia were abolished. And today, after the events of March 29 in Moscow, it is obvious that these measures did not increase the safety of Russia’s citizens in the least.

No matter how much this new bill might look like a continuation down that same path, any opposition to the bill is unlikely to keep it from passing given that United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party lead by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, holds an overwhelming majority in the State Duma,.

Update 4/6/10: The Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, turned down the State Duma’s bill during it’s Tuesday session. Mihkail Kapura, deputy chairman of the judicial committee, cited a lack of viability to implement such restrictions and the danger of bringing about the destruction of free speech.

A new law passed on Monday by the Russian State Duma will ban the media from reproducing any statements whatsoever issued by anyone deemed to be a terrorist, ITAR-TASS reports.

The bill was written by Robert Shlegel, a member of the leading United Russia party and former press secretary for the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. It will amend current legislation governing the media to include a ban on “the distribution of any material from persons wanted for or convicted of participating in terrorist activities.”

Shlegel said that the March 29 suicide bombings on the Moscow metro, which killed 40 people and injured more than 100, was the impetus for the bill. He said that he opposes giving a spotlight in the media to Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader who has claimed responsibility for the attacks. He also criticized Google for allowing its YouTube video service to host a recording of Umarov’s post-March 29 statement.

“News about militants should consist only of reports about their destruction,” Shlegel concluded.

Amidst the heightened criticism at the Russian government’s failure to address terrorism originating in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region, some Kremlin supporters have accused the press of being terrorist collaborators. In particular, State Duma Speaker and United Russia member Boris Gryzlov singled out columnist Aleksandr Minkin of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper as collaborating with the terrorists responsible for the March 29 attacks. Minkin has demanded an apology from Gryzlov and threatened to sue him for slander. Gryzlov has threatened a counter suit. Additionally, United Russia member Andrei Isayev has threatened that party members might sue Minkin for being a terrorist collaborator.

Director Oleg Panfilov of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations said that the new law will turn Russia into a country like North Korea and was another example of Shlegel’s “routine stupidity.” “It immediately raises the question,” he said, “Who do we label as terrorists? Those convicted by the court, or those that the bureaucrats consider to be terrorists?”

Secretary Mikhail Fedotov of the Russian Union of Journalists explained that nothing good could result from Russian society being deprived of information about the positions and confessions of alleged terrorists. “Society should know the face of its villains and understand what kind of evil it is being confronted with,” he stressed.

Even without the new law, the Russian media already faces complications with the authorities’ interpretation of current media legislation. Reports surfaced late Monday that the federal communications supervisory agency Roskomnadzor has accused the online edition of the Argumenty Nedeli newspaper of extremism for posting a video of Umarov’s statement. According to the agency, posting the video violates a law prohibiting the media from being used for extremist activity. The law, however, is criticized by oppositionists and human rights groups as being so vague as to allow the government to define extremism however they’d like, and has resulted in crackdowns on a wide variety of groups and individuals critical of the Kremlin.

Commission member Andreas Gross told the press that the Russian government had failed to observe the right to free assembly. “It is not apparently to the Russian government that the right to free assembly is a basic human right and should not be a topic for debate,” said Gross.

Russian opposition groups have long complained of brutal repression in response to their rallies, which are usually denied sanction by regional authorities. Of particular note are the Strategy 31 rallies organized by the Other Russia coalition, dedicated to the 31st article of the Russian constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly. Moscow city authorities have categorically refused to sanction the rallies, although organizers have chosen to hold them regardless. Each of the half-dozen rallies has ended with scores of detentions and brutal repression by the police.

While the Moscow mayor’s office has insisted that the Strategy 31 rallies would be sanctioned if the organizers agreed to move them to another location, Gross said that he found such pretexts untenable. Moreover, he said that he made it clear to government authorities that beating members of unsanctioned protests was not acceptable.

Commission member György Frunda brought attention to problems in Russia’s electoral system. The current 7 percent threshold that a political party must reach during elections to hold seats in the State Duma is too high, he said. “The electoral system on the whole is in need of change,” as was the state prosecutor’s office, Frunda added. Gross said in conclusion that the commission hoped to see an increase in the number of parliamentary parties in the State Duma after the next set of elections.

Currently, the only political parties in the State Duma are the Kremlin-backed United Russia party(holding 70 percent of the seats), the Communist Party (12.7 percent), and the loyal oppositionist parties A Just Russia (8.9 percent) and the Liberal Democratic Party (8.4 percent). The 7 percent threshold makes it very difficult for opposition parties to gain seats, especially given that elections in Russia are already generally accompanied by widespread voter fraud in favor of United Russia.

The monitoring commission plans to return to Russia in July, and will release a full report of its findings in the beginning of 2011.

People’s Democratic Union (RNDS) representative Yelena Dikun told Gazeta.ru that the former prime minister, who became an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after being dismissed by the then-President in 2004, said that Yabloko has responded with “fundamental agreement” to his proposal to create a political coalition. Kasyanov had said earlier that the goal of such a coalition would be to present a unified list of candidates from the democratic opposition to run in the 2011 parliamentary elections.

“The RNDS and Yabloko are now working on coordinating a joint political statement,” said Dikun, without commenting further on details of the negotiations.

Yabloko’s leadership, however, immediately denied the announcement. “I refute the idea that we’ve given our agreement; there wasn’t any,” party leader Sergei Mitrokhin told Gazeta.ru. “There’s an appeal from Mikhail Kasyanov, and we haven’t refused to discuss it. There’s an ongoing electronic correspondence, I have all the letters saved – why Kasyanov took it as a “fundamental agreement” to create a coalition, I don’t know.”

Mitrokhin stressed that creating a political coalition was a gradual process: “It’s not possible to race through this – that would bring about something frivolous,” he said.

The Yabloko leader did say that such a coalition would not succeed if the two parties remained separate. “[A coalition] would be possible as a fraction within Yabloko; there are no other methods in the current situation,” he said, adding that creating a unified list of candidates for the elections was impossible by “hooking on from the outside.”

Declining to comment on Mitrokhin’s statement, Dikun said only that “I confirm my statement.” Konstantin Merzlikin, a deputy representative from RNDS, said that negotiations were indeed still ongoing, but were focused on determining what political platform the coalition would be based on. “It’s important to us that the coalition begin its work long before the elections,” he added.

Regarding Mitrokhin’s statement that the RNDS may have to become a fraction of Yabloko, Merzlikin responded that it was too early to say. “We are discussing the possibility of creating a coalition,” he stressed. “Whether or not this process will develop into a merger, time will tell.”

In addition to Yabloko, Kasyanov had issued the February 4 appeal for unification to the opposition movement Solidarity and Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front. Solidarity co-leader Boris Nemtsov, also a former prime minister, said that while his party was declining the offer, “the unification process is very important – but it will not be simple to do.”

“Until now, Yabloko has not been seen in any of the processes for unification,” Nemtsov elaborated. “We will be glad if Mikhail Mikhailovich’s effort works out, but for me personally, it’s hard to believe.” Nemtsov’s former party, Union of Right Forces, held unsuccessful negotiations for several years to unify with Yabloko.

Nevertheless, Solidarity was more than ready to welcome Kasyanov into their ranks. “Our doors are open to him,” Nemtsov said. “Almost all the RNDS members besides him belong to Solidarity. We’ve told him a thousand times – come join us.”