Lost and found

last updated 8 January 2015

Moscow

Ivan Rybkin, a presidential candidate and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, disappeared for five days this week, only to resurface in Ukraine. Rybkin is the leader of the Liberal Russia Party, which has seen two of its top officials assassinated in the past two years. His absence, reported by his wife, provoked wild theories in the Russian press. Some speculated Rybkin had been killed by the government, others that he had staged his own kidnapping to pep up his campaign. Days later, Rybkin phoned from Kiev, saying he had been visiting friends. But on his return to Moscow, he was evasive about whether he had been detained. “I have never seen or felt such arbitrariness in 15 years in politics,” he said cryptically.