Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: What happens next?

The arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Russia was widely expected by Russian observers, but experts say what next will likely depend on the momentum of the protests in support of Navalny, whether the West decides to punish Russia and how the Kremlin responds. growing unrest in the country.

Navalny, considered one of Putin’s most prominent critics, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Tuesday for parole violations, charges he and his team argued were forged and politically motivated.

The judge said that the year Navalny has spent under house arrest (about 10 months) will be deducted from his sentence. Navalny’s defense team said it would appeal the court’s decision.

Protests over Navalny’s initial detention in mid-January and immediately after his return to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated since last summer for nerve poisoning, have been seen across Russia for the past two weekends, and again on Tuesday outside the Moscow Court where the sentence was handed down.

The decision was widely condemned by Western governments, but the United States and Europe have stopped threatening further sanctions on Russia for the time being, with both calling for Navalny’s immediate and unconditional release.

US Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, hinted in a tweet that further sanctions could be imposed on Russia, which is already operating under Western restrictions due to the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, and meddling in the 2016 election in the United States. USA, among other misdemeanors.

Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, believes more sanctions are coming.

“We may not see this action this week, it could take weeks / a few months, but I think that when it comes we will be surprised by its scope / scope,” said Ash by email.

“This is not the case with a fragmented approach, but with a broad, integrated / holistic approach to tackling Russia’s threat. And attacking Russia hard from the start – to make it clear to Putin, we know what you are doing, we marked your card, we know that you only understand power / strength and here it is. “

Ash said he hoped “a continuous approach to repel Putin’s offensive campaign against liberal Western market democracies”.

While the scope and extent of the West’s reaction against Russia is still verified, it can also have an indirect effect on the momentum of pro-Navalny protests in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the police were justified in using strict methods to stop protests by Navalny supporters who met in front of the Moscow court where the hearing took place.

Peskov also said that calls from Navalny allies for the Russians to take to the streets after his arrest on Tuesday are a provocation, Reuters reported. More than 1,400 Navalny supporters in 10 cities were arrested on Tuesday, according to the monitoring group OVD-Info.

The USA, Germany and France are among some of the western nations that have condemned violence against demonstrators in Russia and called for Navalny’s immediate release.

Russia rejected this criticism, defending the police’s response to the protests and accusing Western countries of double criteria.

“With regard to events taking place in Russia, and not just with Navalny, the coverage of the West is selective and one-sided,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Wednesday, the news agency said. news Tass.

“This hysteria, which we heard about the trial in the Navalny case, went much further,” he added.

Daragh McDowell, Russia’s top analyst at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, said Navalny’s conviction and imprisonment would constitute “a massive blow to the opposition, which has lost one of its most effective organizers and communicators.”

The movement was further undermined because other members of Navalny’s national organization were also the target of arrests and detentions, he noted, and whether the protests could continue at their current level is unknown.

“The main question is whether the current wave of protests sparked by Navalny’s arrest has reached a point where they are self-sustaining and will continue even when he and his team are removed from the camp. Certainly, the decision to arrest him is likely to trigger by less a short-term increase in street protests, accompanied by a corresponding increase in arrests and aggressive police brutality, “noted McDowell.

Experts warn that what is most worrying for Putin is that the protests seen so far also reflect the general public’s dissatisfaction with Russia’s ruling class, the prevailing corruption and kleptocracy and the decline in living standards.

McDowell said that “a major point of concern for the Kremlin must be that the protests, although triggered by Navalny’s arrest, are more the result of long-term social and economic stagnation … the protesters are not moved so much by the political program. de Navalny as they are a general feeling of being fed up with the status quo. “

Despite an ostensible lack of political alternatives to Putin, which McDowell saw as not in imminent danger of overthrow, “his political regime is based not so much on active support, but on tolerance and acceptance, and it appears that the Russian population is moving quickly approaching its limits. “

This sentiment was echoed by Christopher Granville, managing director of EMEA and global political research at TS Lombard, but he warned of a potential “stalemate” between the Kremlin and the opposition.

“The root cause of the current political yeast in Russia is the long government of Vladimir Putin entering its terminal phase. Far from removing uncertainties (even at the cost of more acute short-term turbulence), this final game is now more likely to dragging, with worsening social tensions and polarization, “he said in a note on Tuesday.

Granville said his bleak outlook for Russia, which is also negative for the country’s economic growth prospects and asset valuations, “stems from a key feature of Alexey Navalny’s challenge to the Putin government: the stalemate”.

“The support base of each side in Russian society is too solid to allow quick or easy victories. Removing Navalny from the council, either by murder or, as now, by imprisonment, is not a ‘solution’: far from being a cult of personality, the galvanized movement marks a change of generation. Putin’s base, still a plurality, is however cemented by rational fears of instability, “he said.