Page 15 - RusRPTAug19

maturing and getting stronger by day. At this particular stage, the Kremlin has “succeeded” in what generations of opposition leaders failed to do - it united the liberal opposition,” tweeted Leonid Ragozin, a well-known Russian journalist. “This ain’t going to be a linear process, but unless Putin starts reforms (as in real clampdown on corruption and criminal behaviour of Security bodies) the intensity of this struggle will keep rising.”
Despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to subdue the population protests have become a regular feature of local politics, however, instead of focusing on the big themes like regime change, that always catch the western headlines, today's protests tend to focus on local issues that affect the local community directly like parks and landfills.
Even the case of the July 27 protests fits the same template as the choice of city council in Moscow will directly affect the everyday lives of millions of Russians and they are simply demanding the ability to choose a candidate that will represent their best interests, rather than a representative of the Kremlin.
Revolution by osmosis
The growing Russian protest movement is being driven by slowly falling living standards thanks to Putin’s austerity, but it is also a function of Russians watching the other protest movements in the rest of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which the most politically interested Russians are indeed observing.
The most important of these revolutions was the Ukrainian 2014 Revolution of Dignity in 2014 that swept the deeply corrupt former president Viktor Yanukovych out of office. However, rather than an inspiration for Russians, Ukraine’s subsequent economic collapse and military conflict with Russia has proven to be a cautionary tale.
While western Russia watchers are focused on political change that could make people’s lives better, as bne IntelliNews has argued elsewhere equally important for most Russians, if not more so, is not destroying the real material gains that have been made in the last almost three decades. It is this caution that makes a real popular uprising in Russia very unlikely as Russia has made more gains and has the highest standard of living in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Having said that the ushering in and promise that Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has brought could bring new pressure on the Kremlin from Russians that start to demand the same sort of genuine representation.
Likewise the Velvet revolution in Armenia last year has also introduced alternative models of government that are more accountable to the people. It so far has not ended in collapse and is still inspiring the local population.
And Georgia’s Rose Revolution has set several precedents. Just lately popular protests once again held the government accountable and highlighted to the Russians that governments can be held accountable to a certain degree.
It is not clear how all these protest movements will affect or guide Russia’s political maturation but clearly across the entire region, not just in Russia, populations are politically maturing and governments are being forced to respond.
And the Moscow protests are unlike to end with the mass arrests on July 27 as the opposition politicians have called on their supporters to keep up with street rallies in the run-up to the city council elections in September.
15 RUSSIA Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com