Leonid Slutsky appointed as new leader of Russia’s LDPR party 

Chairman of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky has been appointed the new head of the LDPR parliament faction at the State Duma, state news agency TASS reports, citing the party’s press service.

LDPR, or the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, is a right-wing populist political party, previously led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in early April from COVID-19 complications.

“LDPR deputies have elected Leonid Slutsky as the permanent leader of the faction by a majority of votes,” the press service stated.

Slutsky earlier held the position of acting head of the party.

Leonid Slutsky has been a member of the Russian State Duma since 2000. In 2016, he was appointed Chairman of the International Affairs Committee. He was also a member of the Russian delegation to the Russia-Ukraine peace talks following the invasion of Ukraine.

On May 17, Slutsky proposed to lift the death penalty in Russia for the fighters of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. “If their monstrous crimes against humanity are proven, I would like to repeat my proposal to make an exemption from the moratorium on the death penalty in Russia and to enable the court to consider the possibility of capital punishment,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

In February 2018, several female journalists working at the Russian State Duma accused Slutsky of sexual harrassment. One of the women told Dozhd TV channel that the politician had grabbed her by the crotch when she came into his office for an interview on international affairs. Later, head of RTVI information service Ekaterina Kotrikadze, Dozhd producer Darya Zhuk and BBC reporter Farida Rustamova publicly accused Slutsky of sexual misconduct.

In the spring of 2018, over a dozen Russian media outlets, including Echo of Moscow, Novaya Gazeta, Dozhd, Meduza, RBC and others, declared a boycott of the Russian State Duma and recalled their correspondents from the chamber in response to the Slutsky scandal.

The journalists filed a claim with the State Duma Ethics Committee, which found no violations in Slutsky’s conduct. The politician did not accept responsibility, noting however that he often uses terms of “endearment” when talking to women. “I could have said ‘bunny’. I call every girl or woman I have good relations with ‘bunny’. My daughter, for example, or my aides at the State Duma,” he said.