30 Briefing Russian repression The Economist November 13th 2021
and bring together those who feel that way.
One way of looking at the change is by
comparing the three waves of protest in
201112, 2017 and 2019. The protests of 2011
12, the largest up to that time, were a re
sponse to elections seen as rigged and to
the return of Mr Putin, who had previously
switched from president to prime minis
ter, to his previous office. They were politi
cal protests spurred by political events.
The next protests of comparable size, in
2017, were triggered by a YouTube video. An
account of the corruption of Dmitry Med
vedev, Russia’s prime minister at the time,
put together by Mr Navalny, was seen by
4.5% of Russians within a couple of weeks,
his supporters say, and its claims were
heard by three times as many. Mr Medve
dev’s approval rating fell by ten percentage
points. Encouraged, Mr Navalny called on
people to take to the streets, and they did.
In the Liberal Mission report, Kirill Ro
gov, a political analyst, argues that “The
biggest threat to the regime is not the prot
est itself, but the reaction of society.” On
that basis the 2019 protests were the water
shed. Barred from standing himself, Mr
Navalny nominated allies to run in Mos
cow’s local elections. When the Kremlin
blocked them, people took to the streets
and violence ensued. After the 2017 prot
ests, 40% of the public had sided with the
police and only 27% with the protesters. In
2019, 41% sympathised with the protesters
and condemned the police violence. The
Kremlin lost nearly half of its seats on the
city council. The protesters had, for the
first time, garnered real support.
That did not mean they were winning.
Though Mr Navalny had support in Mos
cow and some other places, only 20% of
Russians approved of him. But 80% now
knew who he was. One of the key assets of
any autocracy—the apparent absence of
any alternative—had been lost. The Rus
sian elite started to talk about succession.
So Mr Putin changed the constitution to let
himself stay in power indefinitely and re
inforced that change with repression.
It has been largely a preemptive strat
egy. Many Russians believe Mr Navalny’s
videos showing the extent of the regime’s
corruption and think him brave, but few
are committed to doing anything about the
situation. That is how Mr Putin wants to
keep it. The difference in the treatment of
those arrested during the protests of 2019
and those arrested in protests at the time of
Mr Navalny’s return in January is revealing.
In 2019, the vast majority were quickly re
leased with a fine, whereas in 2020 roughly
half of the 11,000 arrested were held for up
to two weeks. More than 130 criminal cases
have been launched in the aftermath, ac
cording to ovdInfo.
Facialrecognition technology also al
lowed the police to make arrests weeks or
even months after the main protests—a delayed response that adds to the anxieties of
all who participated. Mr Okhotin of ovd
Info argues that such anxiety has become
an important instrument of oppression in
itself. So has the cynicism of jailing protes
ters during the pandemic for “violating
epidemiological restrictions”, in a country
where 80,000 people can be gathered into
Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium to cheer Mr
Putin. If Mr Navalny tried to inspire a sense
of agency, the Kremlin wanted to plunge
them back into a state of helplessness.
In 2019 Mr Putin signed a “sovereign in
ternet” law which forced internet provid
ers to install special equipment that allows
the state to block, filter and slow down
websites. Gregory Asmolov, an expert on
the internet at King’s College London, says
the goal is not to build a Chinesestyle fire
wall but to influence people’s choices. If
people don’t know what they are missing,
they will not look for it.
The Kremlin has cracked down on “in
fluencers” and independent media outlets
that feed interest in politics, while herding
web users towards local socialmedia net
works—which happily share information
with the security services—and video
hosting platforms that are easy to control.
International services are harried with
fines and hobbled with slow download and
upload speeds, making video sharing al
most impossible. Most Russian opposition
figures believe that within two years You
Tubewill not be available in Russia.Tomorrow belongs to me
For now the Kremlin seems to have suc
ceeded in applying enough repression, and
thus generating enough fear of worse to
come, to accomplish its needs. But the
screw continues to be turned. For one
thing, the repression is not limited to
achieving the Kremlin’s political aims;
those close to Mr Putin are able to use this
machinery for their own ends. Mr Zuev’s
persecution, for example, appears to be to
some extent collateral damage in a fightbetween a detained former vicepresident
of Sberbank, Russia’s largest state bank,
and Arkady Rotenberg, one of Mr Putin’s
closest business associates.
And Russia’s securocrats are not going
to pack their bags and go home when they
control a significant and growing chunk of
public expenditure. More than 10% of the
national budget is spent on internal secu
rity. There are a third more police and secu
rity staff than activeduty soldiers.
Mariya Omelicheva of the National War
College in Washington, dc, points to an
other selfperpetuating dynamic: she calls
it a “repression trap”. Expanding the role of
the security services amplifies the Krem
lin’s perception of threat at home and
abroad, justifying more repression. As
long as the regime relies on the demonisa
tion of foreigners—and “foreign agents”—
this trap looks set to keep tightening.
So repression worsens even as resis
tance is held at bay. Protesters know that
the people understand the regime’s cor
ruption. According to a Levada survey, 55%
found the picture of Mr Putin’s ostenta
tious wealth and corruption that Mr Naval
ny posted to YouTube on his return in Jan
uary convincing. But they also understand
that this in itself will not change things, at
least not quickly. Only 17% said that the
video changed their opinion of Mr Putin
for the worse. And increased comforts pro
vide a palliative for some.
On the eve of the last large protest in
April, in a candlelit Moscow café, mem
bers of the liberal intelligentsia sat hud
dled around small tables, bracing them
selves for arrest at a protest the following
day. Tatiana Gnedovskaya, an art expert,
sang for them. Her normal repertoire is
Russian and romantic. On that evening,
though, she ended her set instead with
nightclub songs from 1930s Germany. No
one needed to ask why. “We, too, have a
sense of darktimescoming” she said later,
“but we continuetolive and enjoy our lives
while we can.”n