LONDON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin told a London news conference he was kidnapped and will not return to Moscow until after the March 14 election.
Rybkin, the former head of the Duma and a top security adviser to former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, said he was lured to Ukraine last week under false pretenses, drugged and kidnapped, the BBC reported.
Rybkin, 57, said he is staying away from Moscow to protect his family.
"I don't know who did it, but I know who benefited from this," said Rybkin, who is not regarded as a serious contender for Russia's top job.
Rybkin, linked to exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, is a fierce critic of incumbent President Vladimir Putin.
Rybkin surfaced Tuesday in Kiev, Ukraine, after disappearing last week, protesting, "I am entitled to two or three days of private life." His wife had asked police to help find him.
He said Friday he had gone to Ukraine supposedly to meet the last elected president of Chechnya, Aslan Maskhadov, for peace talks, but was then drugged and was unconscious for four days. He did not say how or why he was released.
