Supporters of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Navalny are preparing to launch a new form of protest demonstrations in the spring, the largest since Putin took power. The number of people signing up for the demonstrations online is now growing at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, a new law has just been passed to allow Putin and Medvedev to continue running for president in the future.
Release of Navalny: Largest demonstration since Putin’s rule
The team of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Navalny has announced that it will launch a new mass protest in the spring, with the main demand being that Navalny be set free. Online registration for the demonstrations has been open since March 23, and if more than 500,000 people sign up, Navalny’s team will announce the exact date of the demonstrations later.
Several of Navalny’s key aides currently in exile, including key political advisers Volkov and Percich and others, have recorded a special video to build momentum for the event. Navalny’s team says this could become the largest protest since the collapse of the Soviet Union, or Putin’s rule.
The Navalny team has opened a special web page for this purpose. Those who plan to participate in the demonstrations can sign up on this page, they just need to fill in their email address and the names of the cities and towns where they plan to participate. In the reply, they will get information about the meeting place and Time of the demonstration.
Organizing and mobilizing online makes it more difficult for the authorities to respond
Navalny’s team says it will be completely different from the past, another completely new form of protest that will be more difficult for the authorities to disperse.
Political scientist Kolasheninnikov said this is a new model of organizing protest demonstrations that will take anti-Putin protests to a new level. Because the organization and mobilization is done online, it could be more effective and difficult to stop, able to avoid disruption by Putin’s security apparatus, and would make it more of a headache and difficult for authorities to respond. This is because traditionally when demonstrations are organized in Russia, it is usual to announce the time and place of the event in advance and then go to prepare and apply for approval to the authorities, who always find various reasons to make things difficult.
After the new webpage of the demonstrations was launched at noon on March 23 and registration began, more than 170,000 people had already registered in less than a day. By the afternoon of the 25th, the number of registrations was approaching 250,000.
The webpage, called “Navalny Freedom,” says that Putin tried to kill Navalny and that Navalny survived, but Putin threw him in jail. If you are against corruption, if you are against persecution and political killings, if you want Navalny to be free, the only way is to take to the streets and protest, the webpage says.
The webpage also calls on those planning to participate in the demonstration to forward posts on social media, distribute leaflets in residential buildings and wear clothes with symbolic signs so that more people can know about the protest.
Focus on Navalny Putin Medvedev’s long reign
Opposition leader Navalny, who was poisoned while traveling in Siberia last summer and later sent to Germany for treatment, was arrested at the airport immediately upon his return to Moscow in late January after recovering. A number of anti-Putin demonstrations broke out across Russia in late January and early February in protest of Navalny’s arrest, when a large number of protesters were arrested.
Navalny is currently serving his sentence in a prison in the Vladimir region, not far from Moscow. Some of Navalny’s supporters have said on social media that Navalny is being mistreated in prison, where he is exposed to light at night and woken up every hour, making it difficult to sleep.
Navalny’s lawyer and his team said on March 24 that Navalny’s health had deteriorated sharply and that he had severe back pain and difficulty walking with paralyzed legs and feet. But the prison administration later denied this. More than 100 Russian cultural, media and human rights activists issued an open letter on March 25 calling for attention to Navalny’s health.
Meanwhile, the State Duma, Russia’s lower house, passed a new law in its third reading on March 24. The new law would allow Putin and former President Dmitry Medvedev to run again in presidential elections and be able to serve two more terms as president, without counting their past presidential terms. Some Russian media have calculated that Putin would sit on the presidency until 2036 if he wanted to, by which time he would be 84 years old.
Like the former Soviet Union, but the time for change has not yet come
Current affairs commentator Panfilov said Russia’s current situation reminds him of the Soviet Union 30 or 40 years ago, when there was also popular discontent and public discontent. Internationally, the Soviet Union was isolated and its aging Communist Party leaders remained in power until their deaths.
Panfilov: “After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the war there, the Soviet Union was severely sanctioned by the international community, just as it is today. The economic situation of the Soviet Union at that time was equally bad, and as a result, the Soviet Union later collapsed. All indications are that Russia is in a very similar position today as the Soviet Union was then.”
Nikolskaya, a Russian sociologist who has long been interested in public sentiment and specializes in the relationship between the people and the regime, said that support for the ruling party, United Russia, of which Putin is the leader, is currently plummeting. In Russian society, especially among the younger generation, attitudes toward Putin’s regime are changing in a negative direction.
However, she believes that the number of people ready to build barricades and engage in radical street protests is still small, that Russian society is not yet ripe for a major change, and that Navalny’s own support among the population is still low.
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