Russians show anger at Putin’s move to raise state pension age
OPPONENTS of a Russian government move to increase the age for state retirement pensions held protests yesterday in which more than 150 people were reportedly arrested.
The protests were called by Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption activist, who is Vladimir Putin’s most prominent foe. Mr Navalny is serving a 30day jail sentence connected with an unsanctioned protest in January unrelated to the pension proposal.
Opposition to the proposal spans the political spectrum. Protests organised by the Communist Party were held across Russia earlier this month.
The plan calls for the pension age to be raised five years, to 65 for men and 60 for women.
Olga Sokolova, a 52-year-old factory worker, said she was “dumbfounded” when the proposal came in June because she had hoped to retire from her physically taxing job at 55. “I can’t keep being afraid any more,” she said of her decision to risk detention by attending a protest in Moscow’s Pushkin Square that police said attracted about 2,000 people.
They chanted “Russia without Putin” and held signs including “Putin, when will you go on pension?” Demonstrations also took place in Yuzhnosakhalinsk on a Russian-controlled Pacific island and in Kaliningrad, the exclave between Poland and Lithuania.
Photographs on social media indicated most of the protests were attended by 100 or more people, with some apparently drawing several hundred. In St Petersburg, the crowd appeared to exceed 1,000. An Associated Press journalist counted at least 30 people detained at that protest.
The OVD-INFO organisation that monitors political repression reported 153 people had been detained in connection with protests around the country. Raising the pension age is opposed both by older Russians, who fear they will not live long enough to collect significant benefits, and by younger ones worried that keeping people in the workforce longer will limit their own employment opportunities.
“The reform is a robbery of my parents and grandparents. We’re stealing our future, too. Right now the only thing we can do is protest,” 24-year-old Igor Panov said at the Moscow demonstration.
Mr Putin says raising the eligibility age is necessary because rising life expectancy in Russia could exhaust pension resources if it remains the same.