MOSCOW (AP) – Shaken by nationwide protests against incumbent opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Russian authorities are quick to block any new ones – from gathering legal pressure on his allies to launching a campaign to discredit demonstrations.
Unprecedented mass rallies in Russia on January 23 demanding Navalny’s release from prison have led to thousands of arrests and dozens of criminal investigations. Dozens of top partners and allies have been shut down, with some facing criminal charges that have prison sentences.
President Vladimir Putin compared the protest organizers to “terrorists”, and lawmakers accused Navalny of being a Western hostage and betraying his country for the benefit of Russia’s opponents.
Navalny’s team admits the pressure is unprecedented, but says it will not give up and calls for another demonstration on Sunday.
A look at the Kremlin’s unrest and strategy:
WHAT APPLIED THE PROTESTS?
Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic, returned to Russia on January 17 after five months in Germany, where he was recovering from a poisoning with a nervous agent whom he blames on the Kremlin and which Russian officials deny.
Navalny, 44, was arrested at the airport on arrival and jailed for 30 days, awaiting a court hearing in connection with his being sent to prison for alleged violations of a previous conviction – which he claims was motivated. political. On Thursday, a court refused to release Navalny, rejecting his arrest warrant.
Navalny is famous for his video investigations into official corruption. Following his arrest, his team posted a report on its YouTube channel about a $ 1.3 billion complex built for Putin, with lavish Italian furniture and even expensive toilet brushes. Get over 100 million views. The Kremlin and even Putin – who never mentions Navalny by name – have denied that it was built.
Navalny’s team called for mass protests to free them on January 23, and tens of thousands took to the streets in more than 100 Russian cities in the largest and most widespread outburst of anger against the Kremlin in recent years. The rallies took place despite their lack of authorization, which previously discouraged large turnout due to the threat of arrests.
What was the response of the authorities?
Dozens of Navalny’s associates were detained a few days before the protest. Warnings that his team is encouraging minors to take to the streets have begun to spread among parents. Navalny’s team denied the allegations.
During the protests themselves, more than 4,000 people were detained, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political arrests. He said it was the most in his nine-year history of keeping records from the Putin era. In some cities, rallies were aggressively dispersed, and human rights lawyers said there had been violence. About 20 criminal investigations have been opened for a wide range of charges.
On Wednesday, Moscow police raided apartments and offices belonging to Navalny’s associates and opposition figures, including his own apartment. The searches were carried out as part of investigations into alleged violations of coronavirus regulations during the protests, a charge that lasts up to two years in prison.
Five people – including Navalny’s brother Oleg and main ally Lyubov Sobol – were detained for 48 hours in the case.
The Russian committee of inquiry also accused Navalny’s strategist Leonid Volkov of encouraging minors to take part in unauthorized protests. Volkov, who left Russia two years ago, will face possible imprisonment if he returns. The case against him was opened the day after he wrote a post on Facebook asking minors not to protest.
“We have never faced this kind of pressure before,” Ivan Zhdanov, head of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation, told AP AP.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER OPPOSITION GROUPS?
For years, Russia’s opposition has been made up of fractured groups that often disagree with each other, although there have been cases of unity in recent years: in 2019, a campaign to allow opposition candidates to run for Moscow city council seen a dozen different politicians. and galvanizes mass protests every weekend for weeks.
Navalny’s case has attracted the unanimous support of various opposition politicians, even those who usually disagree with him. They attended the January 23 rally, issued statements demanding his release and shared the video about “Putin’s palace” on social media.
“The pressure on someone who is an opponent of the incumbent government, of course, affects everyone and we must defend everyone and try to help somehow,” said Moscow politician Yulia Galyamina, who has gained prominence in 2019 campaign and faced jail for protest violations, he told the Associated Press.
Some activists were caught in the crossfire. Moscow police detained a member of the civil society movement, searched his home and that of another member in the Navalny investigation. The home of Galyamina’s spokesman was also attacked.
DOES KREMLIN SEE PROTESTS AS A THREAT?
Officials dismissed last week’s protests as small. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a “negligible number” of people attended the rally, compared to the number of people voting for Putin.
At the same time, state-controlled television, which usually ignores opposition protests, has devoted long segments to rallies, focusing on demonstrators’ violence and stressing police detention.
Navalny’s team said on Wednesday on the Telegram messaging application that this week’s raids are a sign of Putin’s “crazy fear” of mass rallies.
Analysts believe the government takes the protests very seriously. Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik, a political think tank, says the leadership understands to some extent that there have been reasons to frustrate the public since an unpopular pension reform in 2018, in which retirement ages have risen. But the Kremlin also believes that the unrest that Navalny encourages is sustained by foreign opponents.
“On the one hand, there is public frustration, on the other hand, there is… opposition that in the Kremlin is perceived as an instrument of foreign intelligence agencies. This combination can work to strengthen the line of authorities, “Stanovaya told AP. “I think we already see him.”
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?
Both analysts and Navalny’s allies believe the crackdown will continue and probably escalate as they confront the politician and authorities.
“I have been working with Navalny for 10 years and year after year, this repression machine against us has never slowed down – it just increased the speed,” Sobol told reporters the day before her arrest.
Other Navalny allies remain undisclosed. “We hope this will anger people even more before the January 31 rallies and more people will show up,” Zhdanov said.
It is extremely important for the authorities to keep the situation under control before the September parliamentary elections, political analyst and former Kremlin speech writer Abbas Gallyamov said on Facebook.
The election will determine who controls the State Duma in 2024, when Putin’s current term expires, and he can run for re-election for another six years, thanks to last year’s constitutional reforms.
“In the midst of worsening living conditions and a growing demand for change, one person is already inclined to refuse the support of the authorities. In order to insult the wounded, protesters appear, who show their dissatisfaction that they are not alone “, said Gallyamov. “The intensification of street protests could cost the authorities an electoral catastrophe. To avoid it, any means are good. ”