1 of 3 President Putin reigns virtually unchallenged, opponents forced to leave Russia or worse Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Many of the critical voices that have already spoken out against him have been forced into exile, while other opponents have been imprisoned or in some cases killed.
By the time Putin launched the fullscale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had already managed to root out dissent and virtually annihilate the opposition in Russia for more than two decades.
At the beginning of the current president’s term, he subdued Russia’s powerful oligarchs a group of very wealthy people with political ambitions.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once ran Russian oil giant Yukos, was arrested in 2003 and served 10 years in prison on tax evasion and theft charges after financing opposition parties. After the liberation, Khodorkovsky left Russia.
Boris Berezovsky, another oligarch who even brought Putin to power, later fell out with him and died in British exile in 2013, allegedly by suicide.
All major media outlets in Russia gradually came under state control or began to follow official government lines.
By far the most prominent opposition figure in Russia right now is Alexei Navalny, who even from prison accused Putin of trying to smear hundreds of thousands of people in his “criminal and aggressive” war.
In August 2020, during a trip to Siberia, Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a substance that affects the nervous system.
2 of 3 In May 2022, Alexei Navalny appealed unsuccessfully against a nineyear sentence — Photo: GETTY IMAGES In May 2022, Alexei Navalny appealed unsuccessfully against a nineyear sentence — Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The attack almost killed him and he had to be sent to Germany for treatment.
Navalny’s return to Russia in January 2021 briefly roused opposition protesters, but he was immediately arrested for fraud and contempt.
The opponent is now in prison for nine years and was the focus of an Oscarwinning documentary.
In the 2010s, Navalny took an active part in protest rallies.
The many denunciations by Navalny’s most important political organ, the AntiCorruption Foundation (FBK), have also attracted millions of views online.
In 2021, the institution was considered extremist, Navalny has repeatedly rejected allegations of corruption and accused them of political motives.
Many of his associates were pressured by the security services and some fled abroad, including Ivan Zhdanov (former FBK head), Lyubov Sobol (former FBK lawyer) and most (if not all) heads of the extensive network of Navalny offices on Russian territory.
Navalny’s righthand man, Leonid Volkov, left Russia when a money laundering case was launched against him in 2019.
resistance to war
Another prominent opponent of Putin who is behind bars is Ilya Yashin, who has harshly criticized the war in Russia.
In a live stream on YouTube in April 2022, he called for an investigation into possible war crimes by Russian forces and called President Putin “the worst butcher of this war”.
The speeches, broadcast over the Internet, served as the basis for an eightandahalfyear prison sentence for violating the law against the dissemination of “deliberately false information” about the Russian army.
Such a law was passed by parliament shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Yashin got involved in politics at the age of 17 in 2000, when Putin came to power.
In 2017, after years of opposition activism, he was elected chairman of the Krasnoselsky District Council in Moscow, where he continued to be critical of the government.
In 2019, he spent more than a month behind bars for his active role in protests against the authorities’ refusal To independent and opposition candidates for Moscow City Council elections.
Vladimir KaraMurza, a journalist and activist trained at Cambridge University in the UK, has twice been the victim of mysterious poisoning that left him in a coma.
The first of these took place in 2015 and the second in 2017.
He was arrested in April 2022 after criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. KaraMurza was accused of spreading “false news” about the Russian military, planning the activities of an “undesirable organization” and committing high treason.
The journalist’s lawyer says he faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
He is the author of several articles critical of Putin in major Russian and international press organs.
In 2011, KaraMurza led opposition efforts to secure the passage of international sanctions against human rights abusers in Russia.
These sanctions, imposed by many countries, are known as the Magnitsky Acts, named after lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after accusing authorities of fraud.
fight for democracy
KaraMurza was vice president of Open Russia, a leading prodemocracy group founded by former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The institution was officially classified as “undesirable” in Russia and its activities ceased in 2021.
Open Russia boss Andrei Pivovarov is serving a fouryear sentence imposed for involvement in an “undesirable organization”.
KaraMurza may face a long prison sentence, but at least he’s alive unlike his friend and main Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
3 of 3 Boris Nemtsov was followed for almost a year before he was shot — Photo: GETTY IMAGES Boris Nemtsov was followed for almost a year before he was shot — Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Before the Putin era, Nemtsov was governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, minister of energy and later deputy prime minister.
He was also elected to the Russian Parliament. He subsequently became increasingly prominent in his opposition to the government, publishing a number of reports criticizing Vladimir Putin and leading numerous opposition marches.
On February 27, 2015, Nemtsov was shot dead four times while crossing a bridge hours after he asked for support for a march against Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
Five men of Chechen origin have been convicted of Nemtsov’s murder, but the mastermind behind the crime remains unclear.
Seven years after Nemtsov’s death, an investigation uncovered evidence that he was being pursued by a government agent linked to a secret assassination squad in the months leading up to the murder.
These opposition leaders are just some of the Russians targeted to show dissent.
Since Ukraine’s fullscale invasion of Russia began last year, the country’s independent media have faced further restrictions or threats.
The news channel TV Rain had to move abroad and join the website Meduza, which previously left Russia.
Novaya Gazeta remains in Moscow but has stopped publishing its newspaper. Others, like the Echo of Moscow radio station, have been shut down by authorities.
Countless commentators have gone into exile, such as veteran journalist Alexander Nevzorov, who was branded a “foreign agent” in Russia and sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for allegedly spreading “fake news” against the Russian army.
But you don’t have to have an audience of millions to be a target. In March 2023, Dmitry Ivanov, a mathematics student who ran an antiwar Telegram channel, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison including for spreading “fake news” about the army.
Meanwhile, single father Alexei Moskalev has been sentenced to two years in prison for taking to social media to contradict an investigation launched into his 13yearold daughter. The girl had drawn an antiwar drawing at school.
It has taken Vladimir Putin more than two decades to ensure that no opponent can challenge the power he has built. If that was the Russian president’s plan, it’s safe to say it worked.