Page 15 - RusRPTMay21

Despite the international outcry at Navalny jailing the Russians themselves are largely indifferent to his fate. Another poll found that half of respondents had no strong opinion of his jailing and the remaining half were evenly divided between supporting him and disapproving of him. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has been largely unaffected by the affair with his personal popularity rating falling briefly by one percentage point before recovering to 65% within a month.
Since he started his jail sentence Navalny has complained of back problems and pain in his leg. While Team Navalny initially claimed that he has been denied medical treatment it has since transpired that the prison authorities took Navalny to a hospital in the nearby city of Vladimir where he was given an MRT scan and offered medical treatment, which he refused, demanding he be treated by his own doctor.
Even more controversially RT sent Maria Butina to interview him in jail and report on his conditions. Butina was last year arrested on espionage charges in the US where she was advocating for gun rights, before being accused of spying and deported.
Ironically while she was under arrest Navalny called for a her released and threw his support behind Butina, while she was in jail.
During the interview in jail Butina and Navalny had a heated exchange, with Butina claiming that the conditions in Navalny’s barrack being “better than many regional hotels.”
Maria Butina spent 18 months in an American prison after admitting to working as an unregistered foreign agent. She has worked at RT as a correspondent since returning from the US in 2019.
“Navalny chastised her for 15 minutes in front of a line of prisoners, calling her a parasite and a servant of a regime of thieves,” his Telegram channel said.
CCTV footage released by the prison at the same time showed Navalny walking and apparently unaffected by either back pain or problems with his leg. The whole incident caused a emotion storm of comment on social media both pro- and anti-Navalny.
In the meantime Team Navalny has launched a online campaign to collect 500,000 registrations for another mass demonstration and say they will announce the date once that goal is reached. While initial response was rapid and large, after about 250,000 signed up the pace has slowed. As of April 3 a total of 383,688 people had indicated they would attend the rally if should go ahead.
Some 100,000 people attended the first rally in January following Navalny arrest and slightly less attended the follow up rally a week later. Team Navalny didn't call a third rally, afraid the momentum was already fading. The majority of those attending said they came as much to protest against the state’s heavy handed tactics rather than to support Navalny per se.
15 RUSSIA Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com