EPAA vigil for Navalny in Riga, Latvia
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 14:38
With the death of Alexei Navalny, the question arises as to what should happen next for the Russian opposition. The charismatic Navalny never seemed to be afraid, and he was able to mobilize many people who also dared to speak out against the regime.
His widow Yulia announced in a video that she wants to continue Navalny’s fight and take over his role. There has been no reporting about it in Russia itself. “I want to live in a free Russia, and I want to build that free Russia,” she said. “I urge you to support me. Share your anger with me. Rage, rage and hatred against those who have destroyed our future.”
But taking such a prominent place in the opposition is complicated and dangerous. Anyone who tries in Russia itself can count on being arrested and sentenced to long prison sentences or incarceration in a penal colony, as happened to Navalny himself. Most of the regime’s critics have been killed, are serving long sentences or have emigrated abroad.
And from there it is even more difficult to reach the Russians, let alone get them moving. The regime will brand anyone who speaks up as a ‘foreign agent’, and that designation means you can be prosecuted.
Very big loss
The question is whether and how Yulia Navalnaya can replace her husband. It is not clear where she is; last week she was in Germany, where she heard the news of Navalny’s death at the Munich Security Conference.
She stands for one prisoner’s dilemma: If she returns to Russia, she will almost certainly face the same fate as Navalny – a sentence to a long prison term on relatively arbitrary charges. If Navalnaya does not go back, she will face the same problems as other Russians who try to fight the rulers in the Kremlin from abroad.
Among them, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a well-known name. He is a former oligarch who spent ten years in prison in Russia for criticizing Putin and who has now lived in London for years. He also acknowledges that things have not become easier for Putin’s opponents. “This is a very big loss for the Russian opposition,” he told the AP after Navalny’s death.
Other opposition figures include former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov with his Free Russia Forum, which operates from Lithuania, Maksim Katz, an influencer and former poker champion with his own YouTube channel, who campaigns from Israel, and Ilya Yashin in Russia itself. This liberal politician is serving an eight-year prison sentence for exposing misdeeds by the Russian army in Ukraine.
Russia correspondent Geert Groot Koerkamp:
“Organized, legal opposition has become virtually impossible in Russia. Many opposition leaders have left the country, have been labeled ‘foreign agents’ in their own country or are in jail. Political actions, such as demonstrations, are not allowed.
The run-up to the presidential elections offered a rare opportunity for dissident Russians to make themselves heard, but two politicians who presented themselves as ‘candidates for peace’ were soon denied participation in the elections.
Nevertheless, it became clear that the opposition can organize itself well and quickly as soon as the opportunity arises, for example by collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures throughout the country in a short time. This ability to organize is largely the merit of Navalny, who in the ten years prior to his arrest managed to motivate and involve hundreds of thousands of especially younger Russians in politics.”
There is also a range of groups and groups with widely varying agendas. Some focus on certain regions in the immense country. Others stand up for specific ethnic groups, or fight against all kinds of social injustices.
That’s a stark difference from Navalny, who had built a network across the country, complete with social media channels and international support. “We are all struggling with the question of what to do next,” Maxim Katz told The New York Times. “The entire opposition has always grouped around Navalny, so it is unclear what should be done.”
Navalny was indeed a key player in the opposition with his charisma and fearlessness, but he was by no means a unifying figure. He was considered difficult, stubborn, pushy. Good qualities for an activist, but in politics they can be an obstacle to working together. Russian opposition groups are often at odds with each other and openly argue on social media about the best approach.
Go to hell
Navalny actually felt that the energy it takes to unite as an opposition could be better spent fighting Putin and his henchmen. “Let me be clear: you can go to hell with your coalitions,” he wrote on his website last year, after Katz called for an alliance. “This is pretending to take action. Pure fake.”
After Navalny was sheltered in Germany in 2020 when the secret service made a failed attempt to poison him with Novichok, his anti-corruption foundation settled in Vilnius. Social media channels are maintained from Lithuania and provide people in Russia with information.
File a protest
YouTube is particularly important, the only Western platform that is still allowed in Russia. The canal ‘Popular politics’ from Team Navalny has 2.2 million followers.
But in the run-up to the elections on March 17, it will be virtually impossible to launch large-scale actions against the Kremlin. Laying flowers after Navalny’s death has already led to prison sentences in recent days. Any form of political demonstration is dangerous.
There may be another initiative that Navalny also supported: the call for en masse to go to the polling station at noon on election day as a sign of silent protest, knowing that the president will certainly be re-elected for a term of another six years.
2024-02-20 13:38:05
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