MOSCOW (AP) – Russian authorities are moving rapidly through nationwide protests over prison opposition leader Alexei Navalny, blocking new ones – from legal pressure on his allies to a campaign to discredit the protests.
Unprecedented mass rallies in Russia on January 23 in which Navalny’s release from prison was demanded resulted in thousands of arrests, and dozens of criminal investigations were opened. Many of his associates and top allies were sent to prison, some of whom are facing criminal charges with imprisonment.
President Vladimir Putin compared the organizers of the protests to “terrorists”, and lawmakers accused Navalny of being a Western troop and betraying his country to benefit Russia’s opponents.
Navalny’s team concedes that the pressure is unprecedented, but says it will not give in and asks for another demonstration on Sunday.
A look at the Kremlin’s unrest and strategy:
WHAT led to the protests?
Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic, returned to Russia on January 17 after five months in Germany, where he recovered from a poisoning with a nerve agent he blames on the Kremlin and which denies Russian officials.
The 44-year-old Navalny was arrested on arrival at the airport and sent to jail for 30 days pending a court hearing or sent to prison for alleged violations of a conviction in the past – which he said was politically motivated is. A court on Thursday refused to release Navalny and dismissed the appeal of his arrest.
Navalny is known for his video investigations into official corruption. Following his arrest, his team released a report on its YouTube channel about a $ 1.3 billion seabed allegedly built for Putin, with lavish Italian furniture and even expensive toilet brushes. It received more than 100 million views. The Kremlin and even Putin – whom Navalny never mentions by name – denied that it was built for him.
Navalny’s team called for mass protests on January 23 and demanded that he be released on January 23. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in more than 100 Russian cities in the largest and most common outbreak of anger in the Kremlin in years. Gatherings took place despite their lack of authorization, something that had previously deterred a large turnout due to the threat of arrests.
WHAT was the answer by authorities?
Days before the protests, numerous Navalny collaborators were detained. Warnings that his team was encouraging minors to take to the streets began to spread among parents. Navalny’s team denied the allegations.
According to OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political arrests, more than 4,000 people were detained during the protests themselves. It said it was the most in its nine-year history of record keeping in the Putin era. In some cities, rallies were aggressively distributed, and human rights advocates said there had been cases of violence. About 20 criminal investigations have been opened on a wide range of charges.
On Wednesday, Moscow police conducted a series of raids on apartments and offices of Navalny staff and opposition figures, including his own apartment. The searches were conducted as part of the investigation into alleged violations of the coronavirus regulations during the protests, a charge that carries up to two years in prison.
Five people – including Navalny’s brother Oleg and best ally Lyubov Sobol – were detained in the case for 48 hours.
The Russian Committee of Inquiry also accuses Navalny strategist Leonid Volkov of encouraging minors to take part in unauthorized protests. Volkov, who left Russia two years ago, faces a possible prison sentence if he returns. The case against him was opened a day after he wrote a Facebook post urging minors not to protest.
“We have not yet faced this kind of pressure,” Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, told AP.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER OPPOSITION GROUPS?
For years, Russia’s opposition has consisted of divided groups that often disagree, although there have been instances of unity in recent years: in 2019, there was a campaign to field opposition candidates for Moscow’s city council. a dozen different politicians rally. and galvanize mass protests every weekend for several weeks.
Navalny’s case has received unanimous support from 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 obviously affects everyone, and we must each defend and try to help in some way,” said Moscow politician Yulia Galyamina, who became famous in the 2019 campaign and face jail time for protest violations, The Associated Press said.
Some activists got caught in the crossfire. Police in Moscow detained a member of the Civil Society movement, raided his home and another member of the Navalny investigation. The house of Galyamina’s spokeswoman was also raided.
DOES THE CREM LINE SEE THE PROTHESES AS A THREAT?
Officials downplayed last week’s protests as small. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a “negligible number” of people were attending the marches, compared to the number of people voting for Putin.
At the same time, state-run TV, which usually ignores opposition protests, devoted long segments to the rallies, focusing on cases of violence by protesters and police restraint.
Navalny’s team said on Wednesday on the Telegram messaging program that the raids this week were a sign of Putin’s “crazy fear” of mass rallies.
Analysts believe the government takes the protests very seriously. Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, a political think tank, says the leadership understands to some extent that there have been reasons for the public’s frustration since an unpopular pension reform in 2018, which raised the retirement age. But the Kremlin also believes that the unrest fueled by Navalny is backed by foreign opponents.
“On the one hand, there is public frustration, on the other hand, there is … opposition that is seen in the Kremlin as an instrument of foreign intelligence agencies. “This combination can help sharpen the government’s line,” Stanovaya told AP. “I think we’re already seeing it.”
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?
Both analysts and Navalny allies believe that the repression will continue and is likely to increase as the disagreement between the politician and the authorities continues.
“I have been working with Navalny for ten years, and year after year, this machine of repression against us has never slowed down – it has only gained momentum,” Sobol told reporters a day before her arrest.
Other Navalny allies remain untouched. “We hope that this will further anger the people ahead of the January 31 rallies, and that even more people will turn up,” Zhdanov said.
It is extremely important for authorities to keep the situation under control before the parliamentary elections in September, political analyst and former Kremlin speechwriter 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 re-elect for up to six years thanks to constitutional reforms last year.
‘In the midst of deteriorating living conditions and the growing demand for change, a person is already inclined to refuse their support to the authorities. “To offend injuries, protesters appear who show dissatisfaction that they are not alone,” Gallyamov said. “The intensification of street protests could cost the authorities a disaster in the election. Avoiding this is good anyway. ”