Navalny protests threaten to snowball as complaints grow in Russia

But weekend protests against Navalny’s arrest on his return to Russia after recovering from a poisoning attack are threatening to turn into a broader movement. Discontent is now turning into anger after a court ordered Navalny to be held in pre-trial custody for 30 days, fueled by chronic corruption, the pain of last year’s oil price collapse and Covid- 19.

“We have a real problem with corruption on the one hand and poverty on the other,” said Evgeniya Ragozina, a 28-year-old lawyer who faced temperatures of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit to attend a rally in Siberia, the city of Tyumen . She added that Navalny’s arrest was just the trigger.

“People are more afraid of not seeing a decent future for themselves,” she said. “This is why I will be [protesting] until the end of Putin’s political regime. “

Saturday’s rallies were one of the biggest demonstrations of dissent across the country in recent years, with more than 100,000 people in attendance, according to local media estimates. Police detained about 3,700 people on the day, more than at any time since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests rocked Russia in 2011 and 2012.

Organizers said they plan more demonstrations for Sunday, at a time when Putin is laying the groundwork for staying in power for many years. Last year, the Russians endorsed a series of constitutional amendments initiated by the Kremlin that would allow it to remain until 2036, in a vote that was largely organized as a show of support for the leader.

Navalny became a symbol of the protests after he was arrested on his return from Germany, where he was recovering from a poisoning attack in Siberia over the summer. Last weekend’s rallies, in which protesters fought with the police and beat them with snowballs, included many of his followers.

But the crowds also included a broader coalition of middle-aged and middle-class Russians. Polls among protesters in Moscow on Saturday revealed that more than 40% were protesting for the first time. The protests are taking place in a context of rising levels of poverty and rising inflation, triggered by a 20% drop in the ruble’s value last year. Many Russians say the government has also not done enough to ease the blow from the pandemic.

Putin is in no imminent political danger. Many Russians still consider him irreplaceable and his approval rating was 65% in November, according to independent researcher Levada. He also has Russia’s security forces and judiciary at his side, which gives him ample space to await the protests, as his Belarusian colleague Alexander Lukashenko has done since a disputed election in the summer.

But Navalny and his team continue to destroy Putin’s authority with the large online audience he won by launching videos accusing Kremlin-related officials of corruption. In the days before the protest, they released another video, this time featuring an opulent palace with a casino and an indoor ice hockey rink that was supposedly built for Putin on the shores of the Black Sea. Exceptionally, Putin spoke on Monday, denying any knowledge of who owns the building and calling the charges lies. He usually tries to belittle Mr. Navalny, avoid using his name or ignore his accusations.

The clip had already accumulated over 90 million views on YouTube and played the chord of many Russians who had already gotten used to stories about the leader’s wealth.

“The climate in society is changing,” said Konstantin Kalachev, a Moscow political analyst, who said that there is a wide spectrum of problems that are taking people to the streets. “The reason for the protest is different for each protester.”

The Kremlin’s initial response appears to be to escalate Navalny as an agent for the US and its allies. The head of Russia’s powerful Security Council said on Tuesday that the West needs Navalny to destabilize Russia.

Putin has long delighted in the confrontation with the West, which has unleashed Western sanctions in response to alleged hacker attacks and an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Putin has denied. Last year, Russian lawmakers passed a bill that designates political or campaign groups that receive funds from abroad as foreign agents, subjecting them to restrictions.

Political analysts, however, suggest that Putin and his allies are still pursuing a strategy beyond mass arrests to contain rising protests, and are likely to be well aware of how similar demonstrations forced them to release Navalny after he was arrested in 2013.

“The Kremlin has no strategy or even tactics to respond, other than the force line,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert on Russian domestic policy at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Write to Thomas Grove at [email protected] and Georgi Kantchev at [email protected]