Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Another Moscow melee
Police officers detain a protester Saturday during an anti-government demonstration in the center of Moscow, one of several around the city demanding full participation in next month’s municipal elections and the release of previously jailed protesters. The demonstrations have been held every weekend since July 14.
MOSCOW — Anti-government protesters staged a series of pickets across Moscow on Saturday, trying to sustain the momentum of the growing Russian opposition movement that has roiled the capital every weekend for a month.
The atmosphere was far less charged than in previous demonstrations, although police clashed with protesters on the Arbat, a main tourism and shopping thoroughfare, after several hours. Single pickets are allowed without a permit.
In front of a bronze statue of late Soviet musician Vladimir Vysotsky, a protester stepped forward every few minutes to hold up a small sign bearing a slogan such as “Time for change,” “Respect the Constitution” or, more provocatively in English, “Moscow 2019 = Selma 1965.”
“In Soviet times I would not have been able to stand here,” Yevgeny Grinkrug, a Russian retiree, told reporters swarming around him as he held the small sign about change. “But since they are trying by all means to drag us back there, I think that it is time to start seriously resisting.”
The main demands of the protesters were for Moscow to allow opposition candidates to run in municipal elections next month and for people facing charges from previous demonstrations, whom they called “political prisoners,” to be released.
“For now, these are not national protests, but there is a semblance of national solidarity,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, a former Parliament deputy from the Yabloko party who made it onto the ballot for the election because of a court order.
On the Arbat, police charged into a cafe to detain Olga Misik, a 17-year-old who had become a symbol of previous protests after she stood in front of a line of helmeted riot police reading the constitution, Russian news outlets reported. After the crowd began chanting her first name, she was released, but officers grabbed at least one protester, the reports said, as well as 12 demonstrators in the northern city of St. Petersburg.
The Communist Party, which is nominally an opposition movement but mostly supports the Kremlin, held a separate, authorized rally in support of clean elections, as well. Several thousand people turned out, some waving the party’s red flag.
Demonstrations have occurred in central Moscow every weekend since July 14, when the Moscow Election Commission rejected some 17 opposition candidates from running for seats on the municipal council. About 2,500 people have been detained, with most released but a few facing up to eight years in jail on charges of fomenting “mass unrest.” Several opposition figures remain jailed on short sentences.
The question for many is whether the protests can be sustained past the Sept. 8 elections that have inspired them. For some who are opposed to President Vladimir Putin, the answer is yes, even if the protests have not really focused on Putin.
This month signifies 20 years since Putin was appointed prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, with little expectation that the former KGB foreign intelligence offer would have much staying power. But Putin has remained the main figure in Russia ever since. He is in his fourth term as president, and was widely considered the true power in Russia during the four-year interlude when term limits forced him to cede the presidency and become prime minister.
Putin retook the presidency in 2012, after terms were extended from four to six years. He was re-elected in 2018 and will serve until 2024.
At the forefront of the current protests is a younger generation for whom Putin is the only leader they have ever known. For them the protests are more about shaping their country.
Putin has few popular young figures who rally around him, and he alienated many middle-aged Russians last year by raising the retirement age.
“In Soviet times I would not have been able to stand here. But since they are trying by all means to drag us back there, I think that it is time to start seriously resisting.”
— Yevgeny Grinkrug, a Russian retiree