THE Yekaterina Dutsovawho is running for the presidency against Vladimir Putin at Russia’s upcoming presidential electiondenied today that he has the support of a former oil magnate who is running an opposition movement from abroad.

Reporting yesterday, Wednesday, on Dutsova’s official bid to join the election campaign, the state news agency RIA described her as “supported and financed by former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (who has been labeled a ‘foreign agent’)”.

“Foreign agent” is a label applied by Russian authorities to activists and opposition figures it deems to be engaged in harmful foreign-sponsored political activity.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the billionaire chief executive of oil company Yukos, but was a victim of Putin and spent 10 years in prison on fraud charges he denied, before being released in 2013.

He is now based in London and leads an opposition alliance called Open Russia. A spokesman for Khodorkovsky said he “does not fund her and has nothing to do with her.”

The wording used by Russia’s RIA news agency was a first indication of the hurdles Dutsova will face in achieving balanced, let alone favorable, coverage of her long-shot presidential bid by Kremlin-loyal state media.

In an interview today with an opposition YouTube channel, “Chesnoge Slova” (Honest Speech), the former TV journalist said the description of RIA was a fabrication.

Dutsova said she had “no direct relationship” with Khodorkovsky. The claim may have been based, he said, on the fact that her candidacy was supported by Anastasia Burakova, the head of a program called “Kofcheg” (The Ark) founded by Khodorkovsky to support people who left Russia because they opposed the war in Ukraine. Burakova was labeled a “foreign agent” immediately after Dutsova announced that she wanted to run against Putin.

In her interview, Dutsova avoided directly criticizing Putin. But he said there is a certain “stagnation” in Russia after 24 years of his rule.

“Prices are increasing rapidly almost every day,” he said. “The stability they are telling us about does not correspond to reality as a whole.”

Dutsova has called for an end to the war in Ukraine and the release of political prisoners including Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic in Russia. She also said she would seek to repeal the “foreign agents” law.

The Kremlin denies meddling in the justice system, which has jailed many opposition politicians, particularly in the 21 months since it sent troops into Ukraine, on charges ranging from defaming the Russian military to spreading falsehoods. news and betrayal.