Russia says its democracy is the best in the world, days after Putin's only real political rival died in prison

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declared Russia's democracy "the best" in the world.
• The comments came 19 days after the death of Putin's highest-profile domestic rival, Alexey Navalny.

Russia's democracy is the best in the world and it won't tolerate criticism of it, the Kremlin's top spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a youth festival, Dmitry Peskov said: "We will no longer tolerate criticism of our democracy and claims that it is not what it should be."

"Our democracy is the best, and we will continue to build it," he said, per Ukrainska Pravda's translation.

Russia's democracy is not, in fact, the best, and is far from free and fair.

Peskov's comments came 19 days after the suspicious death in captivity of opposition politician Alexey Navalny, arguably the only credible figure in the country's political system.

Russian presidential elections, set to begin in 10 days, are also widely regarded as a foregone conclusion.

Three candidates are set to face off against President Vladimir Putin, but some have already volunteered not to criticize him, state media reported.

One candidate who stood on an anti-war platform, Boris Nadezhdin, was disqualified over alleged irregularities in his endorsements, The Moscow Times reported.

Navalny, whose 2020 poisoning is widely believed to be linked to the Kremlin, was buried on March 1 in a highly-policed ceremony.

Several attendees were then arrested, The Telegraph reported, citing local reports.

Russia has slid in the rankings of global democracies. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked its democracy 114th out of 167 countries in 2023 — below Nicaragua and Venezuela. And US think tank Freedom House labeled it "Not Free."

It scored Russia four out of 40 in the category of political rights, noting that elections are not free and fair, the government operates with no transparency, and there are few safeguards against corruption.

Earlier this month, Russian journalist Roman Ivanov was sentenced to seven years in prison for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine.