{"id":12089,"date":"2021-01-23T18:47:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T18:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=153902"},"modified":"2021-01-23T18:47:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T18:47:46","slug":"anger-over-corruption-navalnys-jailing-may-be-redefining-russian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/23\/anger-over-corruption-navalnys-jailing-may-be-redefining-russian-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger Over Corruption, Navalny’s Jailing May Be Redefining Russian Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPutin\u2019s a thief!\u201d<\/p>\n

The chant rang out in cities across Russia on January 23, as crowds took to the streets from Vladivostok in the Far East to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and were met with a forceful police crackdown as opposition leader Aleksei Navalny\u2019s showdown with the Kremlin entered a new phase.<\/p>\n

The last time Russia saw a day of rallies with such geographic scope was in March 2017, after Navalny released a video alleging corruption by then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. This time, an immediate catalyst appeared to be a video report targeting the wealth of President Vladimir Putin himself.<\/p>\n

The nationwide demonstrations were initiated by the Kremlin\u2019s most vocal critic, who languishes in jail, and staged under the slogan \u201cFree Navalny!\u201d But analysts say that the \u201cPalace for Putin\u201d investigation has combined with anger over Navalny\u2019s jailing in a way that may reorient the political balance in Russia going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two different motives for the protesters, but they are converging,\u201d political analyst Abbas Gallyamov told RFE\/RL. \u201cNavalny is becoming synonymous with the fight against corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navalny returned to Russia on January 17 after five months in Germany recovering from the effects of a nerve-agent poisoning he blames on Putin, apparently banking on enough popular support to help him escape a long prison sentence threatened by the authorities \u2013 and mount a robust challenge to Putin\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

The following day, he was jailed for a month pending a court hearing on parole violation charges that could land him behind bars for 3 1\/2 years. Before he was led away, he called on Russians to hit the streets in a huge show of solidarity.<\/p>\n

In the video report released the next day \u2013 which has now been seen more than 70 million times on YouTube — he told his viewers that Putin and his associates \u201cwill keep stealing more and more until they bankrupt the whole country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revealing what the investigative report says is a $1.36 billion palace on the Black Sea that ultimately belongs to Putin, Navalny said: \u201cRussia sells huge amounts of oil, gas, metals, fertilizer, and timber — but people\u2019s incomes keep falling and falling, because Putin has his palace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russians responded in droves on January 23, protesting in at least 60 cities and braving winter temperatures that plunged as low as minus 52 degrees Celsius in Yakutsk, Siberia. Many held placards and signs citing the “Palace For Putin” investigation and denouncing official corruption.<\/p>\n

Police reacted with force, wading into peaceful protests, wielding batons and shields to disperse crowds, and filling riot vans with activists — including Navalny\u2019s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who had returned with him to Moscow from Germany. By late evening in Moscow, more than 3,400 people had been detained across the country, according to the OVD-Info protest monitor group.<\/p>\n

Russian state TV largely ignored the protests, but pro-government online streams baselessly accused Navalny of brainwashing Russia\u2019s youth into dissent, a line often advanced by the authorities in attempts to discredit the opposition movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not their own kids that they\u2019re bringing out,\u201d a guest on an online chat show run by the state-owned RT channel said about Navalny and his allies<\/a>. \u201cNavalny\u2019s kids aren\u2019t even in Russia!\u201d<\/p>\n

But evidence of mass teenage participation appeared slim. In Moscow, an estimated 40,000 people came to a protest in central Pushkin Square, with few minors visible in the crowd. A 14-year-old boy who told a reporter he had come \u201cto have a look\u201d was later roughly detained by police amid cries of, \u201cHe\u2019s just a child!\u201d<\/p>\n

Navalny\u2019s call for a protest in the midst of winter and the COVID-19 pandemic was seen as a gamble and a test of his ability to mount significant support for a new push against Putin, who has been in power for two decades and last year, in a referendum lambasted by critics, secured the right to run for reelection in 2024 and again in 2030.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether the sizable, widespread protests would result in Navalny avoiding a lengthy prison sentence. In 2013, large rallies in his support outside the Kremlin and other Moscow landmarks were credited with getting his five-year prison sentence suspended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf protests on January 23 don\u2019t bring about an immediate result — the release of Aleksei Navalny — then such events will happen again and again,\u201d Navalny aide Leonid Volkov told Current Time,<\/a> the Russian-language network run by RFE\/RL in cooperation with VOA.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"IN<\/p>\n

\"IN<\/span><\/a> Photo Gallery:<\/span><\/p>\n

IN PHOTOS: Navalny Supporters Brave Police Crackdown To Demand His Release<\/h4>\n
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Thousands of demonstrators were braving brutally cold weather and threats of police crackdowns across Russia on January 23 to call for the release of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, a Kremlin critic jailed last week upon returning to Moscow after medical treatment in Germany for poisoning.<\/p>\n