Kremlin Critic: What’s Left of Navalny’s Network

Kremlin critic Navalny managed with his movement to mobilize citizens against Putin. But the state apparatus smashed its network and covered fellow campaigners with lawsuits. Now the authorities are increasing the pressure.

There was a knock on the door of more than 220 Muscovites recently on the same day: It was the police. She asked the citizens why they were registered on a website of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and how they relate to the Navalny organizations, which are banned by the way.

A process that shows how great the pressure is on the movement around the imprisoned opposition party: Even supporters and interested parties are in the sights of the authorities.

General purpose weapon of the judiciary

“We are all different, but we have one goal: Russia without Putin,” sums up fellow campaigner Leonid Volkov in a video about what the various initiatives around Navalny are about. Because Putin is hot corruption, low wages and pensions, a shrinking economy and rising prices. “Each year of Putin’s stability brings the country one year further behind in the world,” he says.

The “Anti-Corruption Fund” headed by Volkov, known as FBK, has now been banned, as has the regional office network – the two main organizations of the Navalny movement. Because both were classified as “extremist” by the judiciary.

This status is a legal all-purpose weapon against opponents of the government in Russia, believes the former regional network manager Ivan Zhdanov. “You can do whatever you want with extremists. Cover up evidence, intimidate witnesses, immediately ban any activity, give them huge prison terms and then call it ‘protecting the population’.”

Colleagues are inflexible

The Navalny movement has achieved in just under ten years what no other opposition force in Russia has achieved: it built up a professional, nationwide network of organizations, repeatedly mobilized masses of people for street protests, and carried out research into the government’s unfair machinations a wide audience.

For this, Navalny and his colleagues are covered with lawsuits. They continue their work in new initiatives, which in turn end up in court.

Everyone on the team is adamant. They always act as if they can only laugh about bans, prison sentences and house searches. When she was arrested in January, Nawalny’s spokeswoman Kira Jarmisch called out to a reporter: “Look what a lot of people are here! I feel super important! So many just to arrest me.”

Audiences of millions in social networks

The latest indictment against two Navalny leadership cadres, Volkov and Zhdanov, came when they called for donations and explained how citizens can transfer the money to them anonymously. Because the closeness to Navalny is not without risk for his audience either: Anyone who has supported him or his organizations in the past three years is no longer allowed to stand for elections and could be prosecuted.

A donation or a like in social networks can be rated as support. There Navalny colleagues reach an audience of millions with their videos and posts. In a flippant tone of voice, for example, the lawyer Lyubow Sobol complains about government politicians: “Lately they have been making such nonsense that everything looks like collective heat stroke!”

50 websites were blocked

The authorities have therefore long been targeting online activities: the media regulator Roskomnadzor has already blocked 50 Navalny-related websites and also wants to block all accounts of Navalny employees in social networks.

The website that has now garnered police visits to so many Moscow citizens is still online. But she, too, has been targeted by the authorities for good reason, says lawyer Ilya Novikov. In the run-up to the Duma elections, people should be intimidated as much as possible so that they do not use “smart voting”. “Someone knocks on the door and yells: ‘Open up! Have you registered for’ Smart Voting ‘?'”

“Smart voting” is reaching its limits

“Smart voting”, the call for a tactically intelligent vote, is the last legal means that the Navalny movement still has in Russian politics. Before the Duma election in September, she is now increasingly campaigning for citizens to put their crosses on the ballot paper for the opposition candidate with the greatest potential. The main thing is that he or she does not belong to the ruling party “United Russia”.

In last year’s regional elections, opposition members recommended by Navalny’s team before moved into the city council in some Russian cities. Political scientist Dmitry Oreschkin believes that this could also happen this time around, driving the government to its intimidation tactics. “The authorities are seriously afraid of both ‘smart voting’ and Navalny himself.” If it weren’t for this fear, nothing of the kind would have been done.

In any case, “Smart Vorting” will reach its limits in the upcoming Duma election: hardly any opposition candidates are allowed there. How such a “tactically clever vote” should be possible – Nawalny’s team has not yet had an answer.