Raising the Stakes: Protests and Corruption Report Place Kremlin on Defensive
Within 24 hours of arriving in Russia, Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny was remanded in custody for 30 days. The arrest has drawn fire from many in the international community, while also sparking a backlash from the public, who were quick to arrange protests for Saturday in at least 85 cities.
Prior to the protests, Russia had attempted to prepare. The Russian Attorney General’s Office had ordered the state censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, to restrict access to websites, while the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia warned that law enforcement would respond immediately to any uncoordinated public events. In addition to this, the Kremlin was forced to defend against allegations of corruption, levelled at Putin by the detained critic Navalny.
Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) had released a report on corruption schemes, which features details of a €1.1 billion property allegedly owned by President Putin. At the time of writing, the video has been viewed over 80 million times, triggering a host of denials by Russian state officials, including Kremlin Spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who stated that the report is “an outstanding myth”. The senior official struck a similar tone when discussing the protests.
Despite Peskov insisting the Kremlin does not fear mass protests, the Moscow Times reported that police had detained over 3,500 people. Also keen to come to the support of Putin was Andrei Turchak, Secretary of the General Council of United Russia, who called the protests an attempt by the West to harm Russia. This narrative was supported by Russian Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who accused the West of hypocrisy, arguing that the West differs in their assessments of protests when they are conducted in Russia. Headlines in state-run Russian media seconded these comments.
RT echoed statements made by Russia’s Foreign Ministry regarding perceived hypocrisy. While Sputnik chose to focus on comments made by Dmitry Peskov, in which he suggested the US embassy had made “inappropriate statements,” calling them “an outright interference in our domestic affairs.” In essence, the protests have shown that on Saturday, the will to mobilize remains with the population of Russia. What is less clear is whether the Kremlin’s response has served to dampen further displays of dissatisfaction in the weeks and months to come.
|