Russia’s Central Election Committee (CEC) has found that 15% of the signatures submitted by presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin are invalid, enough to exclude him from the presidential race slated for March 31.

Nadezhdin is the only candidate that has called for an end to the war in Ukraine, a message that struck a chord with Russian voters who flocked to sign his petition for candidate status in their droves.

Under Russian election rules, a candidate must gather at least 100,000 signatures from supporters across the country and Nadezhdin gathered twice that number. However, independent candidates have to submit 105,000 signatures for validation.

The CEC raised questions over the validity of 9,209 signatures on February 5, saying there were problems with the accompanying passport details or supporting credentials. Nadezhdin said the CEC was "surprised" to find flaws.

Nadezhdin and his team from the Civic Initiative party will dispute the flaws at a meeting with the CEC on February 6 and need to prove at least 4,500 of the disputed signatures are valid or Nadezhdin will be barred from the vote.

Four candidates have already been accepted including the incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin. A final list of candidates is due to be released on February 7.

"If the Central Election Commission refuses to register me as a candidate, then I'll dispute it with the Supreme Court,” Nadezhdin asserted. Earlier he said he would fight for his right to run, but would “stay within the law” in doing so, suggesting he is unlikely to call for street protests. “The whole world saw that we collected signatures honestly.” Nadezhdin's campaign is believed to be sponsored by the Kremlin as a political project to increase the legitimacy of the vote that is universally expected to be won by Putin. However, analysts say the project ran off the rails after voters embraced Nadezhdin's call to end the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin is afraid of turning the presidential elections into an unofficial referendum on continuing the fighting.

Currently Nadezhdin commands just over 10% of the vote in the latest polls whereas Putin has just under 80%.