Shades of Minsk, as Russians again protest against Putin The Economist

The Kremlin is adopting tactics crafted in Belarus to quell protests provoked by the arrest of Alexei Navalny

THE TIDE came from the west. Last August mass protests broke out in Belarus, a former Soviet republic ruled by an ageing dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. Russian opposition leaders watched excitedly as tens of thousands of their Slavic neighbours took to the streets, week after week. The Kremlin was watching too, anxiously. Both sides knew that events in Belarus might be the prelude to what happens in Russia, where an increasingly autocratic Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than two decades. On January 31st, for the second weekend running, large protests broke out across Russia. More than 5,000 people were reported to have been arrested in the latest demonstrations triggered by the arrest of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and his investigation of Mr Putin’s corrupt system of governance.

Paradoxically, the unrest may have been precipitated by the Kremlin’s attempt to avert a Belarus-style uprising. The scale and the suddenness of the revolt against Mr Lukashenko made it reassess the threat posed by Mr Navalny, who has made a name for himself by exposing corruption in Russia. That reassessment, many in Russia believe, led Mr Putin’s security service, the FSB, to poison Mr Navalny with Novichok, a nerve agent, in August. But Mr Navalny survived and, after undergoing medical treatment in Germany, returned last month to Moscow. His imprisonment upon arrival, and the subsequent release by his group of an explosive two-hour film about Mr Putin’s “secret palace”—swiftly radicalised the country’s politics beyond anything Russia had seen for more than a decade.

Tens of thousands of Russians turned out across the country, both to demand that Mr Navalny be freed, and to protest against Mr Putin’s corrupt government. The mass detentions, the brutality of the police and the anger directed against the ageing strongman have closely resembled the response to protests in Belarus.

In Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia’s two biggest cities, officials shut down many central metro stations, limited pedestrian traffic and lined the streets with so many barricades and armoured police vehicles that the city centres felt as though they were under military occupation. The capital was paralysed. As protesters headed for the prison where Mr Navalny is held, the area was fortified with the national guard and extra riot police. By early evening those detained included Mr Navalny’s wife; some of the country’s most prominent journalists, including Sergei Parkhomenko, a critical journalist and activist; and one of Russia’s most popular rappers, Oxxxymiron.

The riot police rushed into crowds, grabbing one or two people and leaving the rest scattered in smaller groups. In viral videos on social media, police forced protesters’ faces into the ground and lined them up against walls, beating them until they bled. They pushed knees into backs, and deployed tear-gas and tasers. It was a show of force, but also of the Kremlin’s nervousness. Russian leaders portray Mr Navalny as a Western agent and the protests as part of foreign intelligence services’ attempt to change the regime in Russia. But such conspiratorial thinking is likely to infuriate protesters, who feel they have good reason to be fed up with Mr Putin.

Russia is now in a full-blown political crisis. And there is more to come. On February 2nd Mr Navalny will face a trial that is likely to convert a suspended sentence of three and a half years—handed down in 2014 in a trumped-up case designed to block him from standing for election—into actual time in jail. Leonid Volkov, Mr Navalny’s chief of staff, who is co-ordinating protests from outside Russia, has called people to rally outside a court.

The Kremlin hopes that its Belarusian-style crackdown will suppress the tide of discontent. But Mr Volkov and the Navalny team reckon that a sense of injustice, generated by the Kremlin’s repression, will further undermine Mr Putin’s legitimacy and add fuel to the fire. For the moment, Mr Putin may feel pleased with his security apparatus. Although thousands turned out again, the numbers had clearly diminished since the previous weekend—even if they were difficult to estimate given their scattered nature.

What happens next largely depends on how the wider public perceives the action of the police and the tactics of the protesters. In the past older Russians often succumbed to state television propaganda that told them Mr Navalny and his followers were a source of chaos and bloodshed; younger Russians, who rely on social media and encrypted chat groups, will see the authorities as the main source of violence. That perception may spread as the protests feed on other grievances, not least economic stagnation and the inadequacy of measures to curb covid-19.

On Sunday afternoon in Moscow, a 66-year-old woman, who did not want to be named, watched on as men clad in light military fatigues and riot gear tackled two young women to the ground. “It looks like they are conducting war on their own people,” said the woman. She had not been a supporter of Mr Navalny’s but felt his arrest was “the last drop”, as she put it. “I’m scared I’ll end up in a police wagon if I join,” she continued, “but after this, how can I not?”

Meanwhile, Yevgeniya, a 25-year-old demonstrator, said she was pleasantly surprised that, despite the beatings, the police had used only limited force so far. “What they’ve been doing is manageable,” she said, noting she has been prepared for a response of the sort that took place in Minsk. “They haven’t killed anyone yet.”