display

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Russia on Saturday to demonstrate for the release of opposition activist Alexei Navalny.

They chanted slogans like "Putin is a thief" and "Away with the tsar".

In the Russian capital, the demonstrators gathered at the traditional protest venue Pushkin Square.

About 40,000 people took part, according to Reuters news agency.

In Saint Petersburg, thousands of protesters blocked the main avenue, Nevsky Prospect, and the Uprising Square near Moscow train station.

But the protests weren't just concentrated in Russia's two largest cities.

The geography of solidarity actions for Navalny was unusually extensive.

There were demonstrations even in the Russian republics of the Caucasus, which are not regarded as classic protest regions.

In Siberia and the Pacific region of the country, around 15,000 people demonstrated, sometimes in extremely freezing temperatures.

Around 300 Navalny supporters gathered in Yakutsk in northern Eastern Siberia to demonstrate at minus 52 degrees.

Demonstrators protested in front of the “Sailors Rest” prison, where Navalny is imprisoned

Source: AFP / VASILY MAXIMOV

According to the civil rights organization OVD-Info, at least 1900 people were arrested in 50 cities across Russia, a record number.

Nawalny's wife Julia and several journalists were there.

During the arrests, the police used violence in many places, for example when clearing Pushkin Square in Moscow.

There were also reports of police officers injured.

display

Navalny himself had called for the protests.

After the arrest last Sunday, the opposition activist, who was being treated at the Berlin Charité after being poisoned, was taken to Moscow's notorious remand prison “Sailor Rest”.

The prison has been known at least since the auditor Sergei Magnitsky died there, who made corruption public in Russia's Interior Ministry.

Dealing with prisoners in the "sailors' rest" is considered particularly strict.

Navalny has so far been refused to receive letters - allegedly because of a Moscow-wide settlement in connection with the pandemic.

Before the protests began, Navalny announced that he was not planning to commit suicide.

A grim warning to the Russian state, which allegedly wanted to kill him with the neurotoxin Novitschok.

Colossal bribe payment to Putin

The demonstrations were very popular thanks to a new video documentary by Navalny, which he and his team produced in Germany and published at the beginning of the week.

In just a few days, the almost two-hour long video was viewed more than 60 million times on YouTube.

It is about a swanky palace on Cape Idokopas not far from the Russian Black Sea city of Gelendzhik.

display

The property, worth more than a billion euros, is largely shielded from the public and is said to belong to Vladimir Putin.

Based on public information, Navalny and his colleagues trace how the facility, which is guarded by the Federal Security Service, was financed by Putin's closest circle.

Navalny sees the building as a colossal bribe payment to Putin and shows a 3D animation of the interior of the palace in his video.

Screenshot from Nawalny's video

Source: AP

You can see, among other things, an underground ice rink - Vladimir Putin is considered an ice hockey fan - and a casino.

The shisha room with a small stage with an extendable pole dance pole and Italian designer toilet brushes worth around 700 euros aroused particular interest from the Russian Putin critics.

Putin's spokesman called the video a "pseudo-research".

The Russian authorities wanted to prevent the demonstrations with all their might.

Massive reprisals against Nawalny's comrades-in-arms and supporters began in advance.

On Thursday, Navalny's press spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch and researcher Georgi Alburov were arrested in Moscow.

The lawyer Lyubov Sobol, who wants to run for Navalny's platform in the Duma elections in the autumn, spent one night in police custody and was arrested again on Saturday.

display

In the province, too, the authorities took action against Nawalny's colleagues the day before the demonstration.

Calls for demonstrations spread millions of times, mainly via the Chinese social network TikTok.

Schools and universities warned the young Russians not to participate in protests and threatened consequences.

A student who replaced a portrait of Putin with one of Navalny at his school in suburban Moscow was questioned by police for four hours.

Unintentional advertising for the demonstrations came from the state, of all places.

State media reported increasingly on Navalny in programs that report on crime.

In the end, the opposition, whose name is otherwise never allowed to appear in the state media, even appeared on the evening news.

"Pervyj Kanal" warned on Friday of "provocations" by the "twice convicted offender".

A representative of the prosecutor warned of criminal consequences for Russians who call minors to participate in demonstrations.

A decision on Nawalny's continued detention is to be made in a week.

Then it will become clear what the Kremlin plans to do with the opposition in the long term.

Navalny faces at least three and a half years in prison if his suspended sentence is converted into prison.

According to sources from the US news agency Bloomberg in the presidential administration, the Kremlin should consider putting Navalny in prison for up to thirteen years.

He is currently being investigated into alleged embezzlement of donations.

This text comes from WELT AM SONNTAG.

We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.

Source: Welt am Sonntag