Navalny protests threaten the snowball as complaints increase in Russia

But weekend protests over Mr Navalny’s arrest on his return to Russia after recovering from a poisoning attack threaten to become a wider movement. Discontent turns to anger after a court ordered Mr Navalny detained for 30 days in pre-trial detention, fueled by chronic corruption, grief over the collapse of the oil price last year and measures to close the Covid- 19.

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

“People are more afraid of not seeing a decent future for themselves,” she said. “It simply came to our notice then [protesting] until the end of Putin’s political regime. “

Saturday’s rallies were one of the largest dissent demonstrations in the country in recent years, with more than 100,000 people in attendance, according to local media estimates. Police detained some 3,700 people a day, more than ever since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests shook Russia in 2011 and 2012.

Organizers said they plan more rallies for Sunday, at a time when Putin has been preparing the groundwork to stay in power for years to come. Last year, the Russians passed a series of constitutional amendments initiated by the Kremlin that would allow it to stand until 2036, in a vote that was largely organized as a show of support for the leader.

Navalny has become a symbol of the protests after being arrested on his return from Germany, where he had recovered from a poisoning attack in Siberia during the summer. Last weekend’s rallies, in which protesters clashed with police and beat them with snowballs, included many of his supporters.

But the crowd also included a broader coalition of middle-aged and middle-class Russians. Polls conducted in Moscow on Saturday showed that more than 40% were protesting for the first time. The protests are taking place in a context of rising poverty levels and rising inflation, caused by a 20% drop in the value of the ruble last year. Many Russians say the government had not done enough to alleviate the impact of the pandemic.

Putin faces no imminent political danger. Many Russians still consider it irreplaceable and its approval rating stood at 65% in November, according to the independent survey Levada. He also has Russia’s security forces and judiciary by his side, giving him ample room to wait for protests, as his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko has done since the disputed summer elections. .

But Mr Navalny and his team continue to wipe out Mr Putin’s authority with the large online audience he created by posting videos accusing Kremlin-linked officials of corruption. In the days leading up to the protest, they posted another video, this time with an opulent palace with a casino and an ice hockey rink that was allegedly built for Mr Putin on the shores of the Black Sea. Unusually, Mr Putin spoke on Monday and denied any knowledge of who owns the building and said the allegations were false. He usually tries to disparage Mr. Navalny, avoid using his name, or ignore his accusations.

The clip had already garnered more than 90 million views on YouTube and struck a deal with many Russians who had largely become familiar with the leader’s accounts of wealth.

“Society’s mood is changing,” said Konstantin Kalachev, a Moscow-based political analyst, who said there was a wide range of problems driving people on the street. “The reason for the protest is different for each protester.”

The Kremlin’s initial response seems to be to launch Mr. Navalny as an agent of the U.S. and its allies. The head of Russia’s powerful Security Council said Tuesday that the West needs Mr Navalny to destabilize Russia.

Putin has long enjoyed confrontation with the West, which has triggered Western sanctions in response to alleged hacking attacks and an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Putin has denied. Last year, Russian lawmakers passed a law designating political or campaign groups that received funds from abroad as foreign agents, subject to restrictions.

Political analysts, however, suggest that Mr Putin and his allies continue to seek a strategy beyond mass arrests to contain the wave of protests, and will probably know well what similar demonstrations forced them to release Mr Navalny. after being arrested in 2013.

“The Kremlin has no strategy or tactics to respond to, apart from the line of force,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russian domestic policy expert at the Carnegie Center in Moscow.

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