“It is impossible to live in Russia, but dying is possible,” said a well-known aphorism by the philosopher Dmitri Merezhkovski, who died in exile during Stalinism. The sudden death of Alexei Navalni in prison is a reminder of his words. Not only the opponents, but also those who raised their voices against the Kremlin and did not flee, are locked up in prison or dead. In the case of the dissident with the greatest external impact, the causes of death have not yet been clarified, but in Russia people are leaving assumes that Navalni was murdered on the streets and behind the scenes. With no politicians publicly dissenting, President Vladimir Putin paved the way to his fifth term as president in March 15-17 elections.
The death of Navalny mobilized this Friday some people who spontaneously laid flowers at the monuments to those in need of political retribution in cities across Russia, including Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg – the largest city in the Urals – and Novosibirsk – the great city of Siberia. Police sealed off the statues and in some places allowed bouquets of flowers and photos of the activist without any political message to be placed, while in other places they dispersed and arrested those present. Despite this gesture, no demonstration is expected for Navalni: even a single picket line is persecuted in today's Russia.
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The population that does not support the president is orphaned by figures who represent them in the political system. The Central Election Commission has vetoed the two burning nails that those dissatisfied with the war against Ukraine were clinging to: political scientist Boris Nadezhdin and journalist Yekaterina Duntsova, the first a regular speaker on Russian propaganda channels and the second an up-and-coming virtual unknown Person.
Several people leave flowers in front of the monument to the victims of political repression in Moscow this Saturday.STRINGER (Portal)
Navalny was a member of the only remaining Russian opposition party, Yábloko, in the 2000s. However, this formation is not represented in the State Duma and did not propose a candidate after its founder, Grigory Jablinski, was summoned to his office by Putin in November.
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Generation of opponents
After Yábloko, Navalni's figure gained strength among Russians with the protests that began in 2011 over electoral fraud allegations and continued until 2013, giving rise to a generation of opposition leaders who are now incarcerated in penal colonies miles across the country. One of the most famous politicians is Vladimir Kara-Murza (Moscow, 42 years old), who was poisoned in 2015 and 2017 and later sentenced to 25 years in prison for an alleged crime of treason by making international accusations against the Russian army in forums for war crimes to have committed.
Kara-Murza is closely linked to two politicians who were major rivals of Putin. On the one hand, he worked with former deputy prime minister and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated outside the Kremlin in 2015, shortly before his investigation into Russian involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine was published. On the other hand, Kara-Murza was the coordinator of the “Open Russia” platform, founded by exiled businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “If you didn’t know or had doubts about how to behave in the presidential election, here is the answer,” said the man who was Russia’s richest man until he was forced to flee in 2004 over tax allegations of dodging. The assets of his oil company Yukos were given to another power-linked company, Rosneft.
Police arrested a man who tried to lay flowers at a memorial in Saint Petersburg to mark the death of Alexei Navalny this Saturday. Associated Press/LaPresse (AP)
In the previous presidential elections in 2018, one could at least count on observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Moscow vetoed this time. The repression of dissent has intensified since 2020, the year Navalny was poisoned with the chemical weapon Novichok, which almost cost him his life. Since then, a series of legal reforms, most notably the law on foreign agents and bans on demonstrations, including individual demonstrations, have left dissidents no room for maneuver.
With the doors of Parliament and the media closed, some opponents believed they had found a place on local councils. But the invasion of Ukraine and the law “against discrediting the actions of the armed forces” changed everything. According to the human rights portal OVD-Info, a total of 19,855 people have been arrested at demonstrations and 883 criminal cases have been opened against war opponents since Putin's order to attack Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Among those convicted are some of these politicians who sought seats on local councils. Among them is veteran Alexei Gorinov (Moscow, 62 years old), whose health concerns those around him after he was sentenced to seven years in prison for criticizing the holding of a children's competition while bombs were falling. about Ukrainian cities; and the opposition activist Ilia Yashin (Moscow, 40 years old), another figure who emerged from the 2011 protests and whose fate is to spend eight and a half years in prison for supporting the Kremlin's version of the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha has doubts.
Yashin, Kara-Murza, the leader of Yábloko and many other opponents showed their support for the historic NGO Memorial when it was dissolved by the Kremlin in late 2021, months before Putin began his war. “There is Memorial, there are the arrests of Navalni, of [el cineasta] Oleh Sentsov… The international response is very important because it will remind the authorities that what they are doing does not go unnoticed,” Kara-Murza subsequently warned this newspaper.
Among the participants in the trial on the closure of the organization dedicated to investigating the crimes of Soviet oppression and modern Russia was Oleg Orlov (Moscow, 70 years old), one of the most prominent human rights defenders. s Highlights of Memorial – it was exchanged for Russian hostages during the Chechen War. “It was a tragedy for everyone, I'm at a loss for words,” the activist said this Friday about Navalni's death in front of the court where he is being tried – and could be sentenced to prison – for writing an anti-Putin column government wrote. Orlov refused to admit witnesses to his defense so as not to endanger them.
Silence the ultranationalists
The Russian opposition is not compact and part of it did not agree with Navalni and his team. In fact, there were public clashes between some members of the late politician's anti-corruption platform and other dissidents over how to behave in the elections – to vote en masse for any candidate except Putin or to boycott him – or whether to support him should or not uprising of the Wagner mercenaries in June 2023.
In any case, the Kremlin's repression did not only focus on opponents perceived to be close to the West. Putin's preventive detention centers also accommodate personalities from Russia's ultranationalist sector and other political actors who are very critical of the West.
The most recent case is that of the communist Sergei Udaltsov (Moscow, 47 years old), leader of the Left Front and ally and friend of the leader of the French extreme left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “It is sad and insulting that the Russian authorities are persecuting patriots and not fraudsters and scoundrels, some of whom are in power,” lamented the politician, who despite his support was accused of the illegal annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine. to “justify terrorism” after stoking criticism of the Russian high command for its conduct of the war.
For the same reason, a pro-Russian “former hero” of the war in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, a colonel in the Federal Security Service (FSB), was sentenced to four years in prison. ) Igor Girkin, nicknamed Strelkov (Moscow, 53 years old). His tirades against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the president were tolerated until the middle of last year, when the uprising of Wagner Group mercenaries prompted the Kremlin to crack down on the most critical in the pro-war sectors.
Although the mercenary company's owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, directed his attacks at the defense minister and his chief of staff Valery Gerasimov for mistakes on the front, Putin never forgave his public attacks. Two months after the mysterious crash of the plane carrying the entire Wagner leadership, including his boss, Putin claimed – without an official investigation – that the accident was due to the mixing of hand grenades and cocaine in the cabin. Even today, Wagner flags and insignia can be seen among Ukrainian veterans, but no one dares to raise their voice. If there is something that unites all Russians critical of Putin today, it is fear.
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