MOSCOW: Russia’s Supreme Court on Saturday turned down an appeal by opposition politician Alexei Navalny to overturn a controversial ruling barring him from running in the March presidential election against Vladimir Putin.

On Dec.31, the Supreme Court upheld the Central Election Commission’s decision that Navalny cannot register as a candidate due to an embezzlement conviction which the opposition politician says is politically motivated.

Opposed only by token candidates, Putin is widely expected to win a fourth presidential term in the March election, making him the longest serving Russian leader since dictator Josef Stalin.

Russian agencies said Navalny’s campaign team will continue to seek a reversal of the ban.

“We will appeal today’s Supreme Court ruling at the Presidium but also at Russia’s Constitutional Court,” Navalny’s representative Ivan Zhdanov told Interfax news agency.

“In theory, Navalny still has a chance of taking part in the election, but in reality they are negligible,” he added.

Navalny, who has campaigned across Russia in recent months, argued earlier in front of the Central Election Commission banning him from participation would make the election illegitimate.

The ban prompted the 41 year-old protest leader to call for a poll boycott.

Navalny has called on his supporters to take to the streets again on Jan.28.

Putin and other top Russian officials to not refer to Navalny by name.

Separately, it is reported that the ongoing rift between the Ukrainian and Russian churches was highlighted in their leaders’ Christmas messages ahead of the Orthodox holiday this weekend.

Patriarch Filaret, the head of the Kiev-based Ukrainian Orthodox Church, wished his country a “victory over the aggressor” on Saturday amid a continued conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels.

“We wish that our Lord help us banish all evil and help us bring victory over the aggressor because the truth is with us,” Patriarch Filaret said in a video published on the Kyivan Patriarchate’s website, calling for God to lead Ukraine to a “final victory over the enemy.”

In his Christmas message published late on Friday on the Moscow patriarchy’s website, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill said the church believed the “nations of historic Rus will keep and renew their spiritual unity.”