Protesting in Russia

LET’S get this out front: Aleksei Navalny, who called the protests against corruption held across Russia on Monday and was once again arrested, will not defeat Vladimir Putin for the presidency in 2018. So why do these demonstrations – the second in four months – arouse worldwide interest?

One reason is that they offer evidence that Putin and his cohorts have been unable to cow Russians into silence. Navalny and other critics have succeeded in mobilising social media to maintain a lively opposition in major cities. The thousands of demonstrators who were out in the streets may be only a small fraction of the population, but all went out knowing that there was a high risk of arrest. More than 700 were detained in Moscow and 300 in Saint Petersburg.

Though Navalny has been criticised by some liberals for his nationalist views, he has focused his indignation in calls for protests on what is the most vulnerable attribute of the ruling elite: its corruption.

Navalny’s latest sally was a remarkable video cataloguing the riches of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, including estates, yachts and a European vineyard. Among the amenities on one of the properties was a special shelter for ducks.

Navalny called the protests for Russia Day, a national holiday, and instead of holding the demonstration at an authorised location outside Moscow’s centre, he shifted it to the central Tverskaya Street, which had been cordoned off for re-enactments of major Russian historic events. That ensured a police crackdown on the protesters in the midst of holiday crowds and people in historical costumes. Navalny was arrested leaving his home and quickly sentenced to 30 days in jail.

The protests strike at a weakness in Putin’s system – pervasive corruption and lack of accountability – that is painfully familiar to most Russians in every corner of the land, and that Putin cannot facilely dismiss as the work of a hostile West.