Analysis: "The authorities do not just want to bring in people who participate in protests - they are close enough"

Few things in Russia provoke as much popular anger as garbage! Especially the garbage that prosperous Moscow wants to send far away so someone else can take care of them. The most angry has been in the Archangelsk and Komi regions since a year ago. For that - in the midst of a sensitive wetland area - the Moscow authorities now plan to build a gigantic dump that will receive half a million tonnes of waste from Moscow each year.

Tens of thousands of people participated in protests, both in the larger cities of Archangel and Syktyvkar, but also in the smaller communities closest to the planned dump. And hundreds of activists go in shifts, around the clock, on posts at the access roads and in a tent camp just next to the imagined tip.

Last summer we saw tens of thousands of democracy activists protesting that basically no opposition politicians were allowed to stand in local elections in Russia. Thousands were arrested, most of them in Moscow. But the power party United Russia still got a nose burn. Opposition politician Aleksey Navalny's organization published lists of candidates who were, so to speak, least bad. Therefore, United Russia declined sharply. The punishment for that came on Thursday, when the authorities struck Navalnyj's office in some forty Russian cities.

For most who are arrested, the penalty is only a day in custody, and a fine. But some have been sentenced to multi-year prison sentences. And the authorities do not just want to put people in protest. It is enough to be close by.

On August 3, the young actor Pavel Ustinov stands on the street some distance away from an ongoing demonstration and looks at his mobile. Then a group of riot police rushes up to him, striking him on the slopes, bolting him with batons and taking him to a prison bus. All clear video footage of a person just meters away. For his efforts to be near a demonstration, Ustinov was sentenced yesterday to three and a half years in prison.

But despite the obvious risks of showing dissatisfaction or demanding change, grassroots activism is growing across the country. Most often it involves protests against various local projects, such as logging, demolition of old apartment buildings to make room for upper class housing, or - as in Jekateringburg - the church's and power's plan to replace a beloved park with a cathedral. And every now and then, activists win over those in power.