Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev can no longer attend concerts by his favorite group Deep Purple without having to fear that the musicians will wear T-shirts with Pussy Riot written on them.

For 17 years, elections in Russia have followed the same pattern: Nobody criticizes Putin, nobody runs a real election campaign, the whole process takes place quietly over a period of two months. The Kremlin blocks every alternative to Putin. He doesn't want a candidate who will travel through the country and speak loudly about Russia's problems.

We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet.

I'm not going to appeal to violence or aggression - of course not.

Life makes no sense if you have to tolerate endless lies. I will never accept this system, which is built on lies, i will not stop my fight against this junta.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev can no longer attend concerts by his favorite group Deep Purple without having to fear that the musicians will wear T-shirts with Pussy Riot written on them.

As far as I know, the people who are against my candidacy now have the upper hand in the Kremlin. They say: Who knows what the election result will be? We already made that mistake once. And they are also afraid of all the things I would say if they let me run.