On February 3, a stream of young Russians flooded my Instagram inboxes and followers list. Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has just reposted my recent story on Instagram: a photo of Navalny in court, raising her hands to form the shape of a heart that had made the cover The Wall Street Journal.
My family emigrated from Russia to the United States in the 1990s, when I was 13, but I did not remember meeting Russian teenagers and young people like them before: an entire generation that grew up under Putin. Throughout their social media pages on Instagram and TikTok, they come across as intentional, bold and creative. They made political videos on TikTok and Instagram. Some of them identified themselves as feminists, vegan activists, dancers, musicians and aspiring lawyers. They seemed to go to the beat of a different drum, sharing a set of universal values that differed from those of their parents and grandparents. It was as if they were visitors from another planet.
When Navalny flew back to Moscow on January 17 and was quickly detained, his team managed to mobilize thousands of people in cities in Russia’s 11 time zones. After the Russian court sentenced Navalny to two and a half years in prison, his supporters continued to protest in the streets. Videos shared on social media showed teenagers breaking portraits of Putin in schools and replacing them with photos of Navalny.
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Navalny’s team organized a campaign called “Love is stronger than fear,” inspired by Navalny’s gesture to his wife in court. “We call on all the inhabitants of the big Russian cities to do a simple thing on February 14, at 20:00,” the Navalny team wrote. “Go out and turn on the flash on the phone, pick it up and sit there for a few minutes.”
Several protests took place on Sunday, mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where several hundred women gathered in solidarity with Navalny’s wife, Yulia, according to AFP. Separately, “tens of thousands” of people responded to Navalny’s call for the Valentine’s Day campaign, facing winter temperatures and coming out with symbolic vigil lanterns in “hundreds of yards” across the country, according to Navalny’s team estimates.
This time, turnout was lower and more peaceful, with no violent clashes with police and mass arrests that characterized pro-Navalny protests last month. Instead, the government’s response has moved behind the scenes, focusing on pressuring social platforms and taking action against those who assume they are even thinking of taking to the streets. Immediately after the Valentine’s Day events, there were reports of reprisals against those who participated in the campaign, including a COVID-19 nurse, Saidanvar Sulaimonov, who was fired after participating in the “Love is stronger than fear” campaign, and he took a photo of himself inside wearing protective gear, Meduza reported.
Even before Sunday’s events, many young people expressed skepticism about the long-term impact of this new wave of protests. Aram Badalyam, a 25-year-old independent folk musician based in Krasnodar, southern Russia – the region where Putin’s alleged palace is located – calls the protests “toothless.” Navalny’s investigation and the outbreak of political activism he saw in the country and in Krasnodar inspired him to write a song about the palace. “Navalny speaks their language,” he says of the new generation of supporters. “She is persistent, brave and courageous. Courage is a rarity in Russia. “
This is the kind of grassroots mobilization that set Navalny apart from other opposition leaders and allowed him to connect with this new generation through social media, as in this TikTok video where he shows his investigation into his own poisoning. From providing copies of leaflets to being placed in their neighborhoods in a Google drive, to continuing to post investigative videos even while Navalny is in prison – his team teaches this new generation a new methodology of protest and activism political.
“Navalny offers tools, protests for examples, in which other members of the opposition can come forward and unite for common goals,” said Nikolai, 23, of St. Petersburg, who spoke to The Daily Beast under a pseudonym. “For me, Navalny is also about the people he has gathered around him, people who fight against the system and help others.”
Navalny’s anti-corruption activities not only educated this new generation about the state of affairs in their country, but also taught them how to fight corruption in the existing system. He showed them what works. “I trust Navalny because he offers arguments and facts,” says Catherine Shipilova, a 17-year-old aspiring lawyer who counts the months until she officially becomes an “adult” in Russia. “I’m going to apply to law school, I want to help people,” she says. “I love Russia, but I am against our current government.”
In an interview with Russian radio platform Echo Moskvy, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil tycoon who had been imprisoned for a decade, noted that Putin’s response to Navalny’s latest investigation into the president’s alleged palace showed a disconnect between the ruling regime and this new generation. This nearly two-hour investigation into an imperial-style palace in southern Russia received more than 112 million views in one month. Putin dismissed the video as boring, calling it a “montage” and claiming that “nothing listed there as my property belongs to me or my close relatives and never did.” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov continued to deny any property rights.
Khodorkovsky called Putin’s response to the viral video more shocking than the investigation itself. “It’s a joke,” he said. “It is natural for the young generation to want something different. The government can listen to them. But for this you need institutions where you set rules, and young people live their lives in this context. But our government does not want to establish cadres. They want to lead everything to stay in power. “
An opinion poll by the Levada Center showed that a quarter of Russians saw the video of the palace and that young people, aged between 18 and 24, absorbed it the most. According to the survey, 37% of the younger age group saw it, more than any other group.
Putin’s first public response to Navalny’s viral investigation into Putin’s reported palace in southern Russia has been widely mocked on social media. A TikTok video showed Putin speaking from an intense purple “hookah” room, which showed a metal pole in the middle of the room, while he explained that there were no documents linking him to the palace.
The Kremlin’s response included a series of denials of any connections to the palace, heavy mass detention and several technological measures to detain participants before the protests using facial recognition technology. But the main focus of the government’s response was to combat social networking sites that allow for the exchange of information, mobilization and political involvement.
Following the first wave of protests, the Russian censorship agency Roskomnadzor reduced to the most popular social agencies, even ordering them to remove the materials related to the protest. On January 29, Roskomnadzor called representatives of TikTok, Facebook, Telegram and VKontakte, saying it was their responsibility to remove posts encouraging participation in “unsanctioned events”, according to the agency. delete reports on Valentine’s Day protest.
Certainly, these young people are only a fraction of the Russian opposition, and Navalny himself does not share all their values. Most Russians still receive their news from the traditional press, which is more loyal to the Kremlin. But at the moment – after Navalny’s latest attempt to poison him, his recovery, his return from Germany and his hasty condemnation of Moscow – he is the one who unites Russia’s opposition, including this younger generation that can only remember a Russia under Putin.
Navalny managed to capture his imagination, and the government’s response was swift. Ministry of Foreign Affairs even opened an official TikTok account in early February, dedicating the first two posts to Navalny. For some of his supporters, what resonates most about Navalny is that he offers a tent to the opposition, gives them tools and educates them on how to make their voices heard: through social media activism, videos and street protests. And he continues to listen and take notes, even with Navalny behind bars.
Nikolai says he intends to continue participating in the protests, despite his detention. “I think the protest movement will continue, but it will take different forms, not just walking on certain streets at some point,” he says. “I see Russia’s future as democratic, free, with respect for the rule of law and reciprocity. The new generation is less susceptible to state propaganda. “
“If the order of government remains the same, we will not see anything improved.” Shipilova tells The Daily Beast. He worries that serving a prison sentence will affect Navalny’s chances of running for office again. “I hope that our country will improve and we will have important and necessary laws.”
Even Alexei Navalny’s tone took on a darker tone, more thoughtful after the events of Valentine’s Day. He was sentenced to almost three years in prison. “Prison is in your head,” he wrote in a recent post on Instagram, comparing his cell and his conditions with the flight of a spaceship. “Right now, I understand that I am on a space journey, flying to a new and beautiful world.”