For the opposition, it is vital to change the format to continue political activity, experts say.

After the FBK was recognized as an extremist organization, Navalny's supporters were left with few ways to avoid criminal liability.

The first step on this path is the dissolution of the former organizations.

Earlier, the head of Navalny's network of headquarters, Leonid Volkov, already announced on his Telegram channel about the disbandment of the network.

As the activist himself put it, keeping the job "in its current form is impossible."

According to the general director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, the reformatting of structures affiliated with Navalny is inevitable and indicates the limited possibilities of various interested forces to influence the process from the outside.

“The experience of several cases in Navalny's entourage suggests that external curators, despite promises, cannot ensure the safety of their own agents and create a political roof for them,” Mukhin said.

According to the expert, now the most accessible way for active supporters of Navalny is emigration.

“The easiest, most affordable way is to go to Georgia or Ukraine,” he explained.

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One of the first to publish information about the relocation of key FBK employees to Georgia was the Sota.Vision Telegram channel, which links a number of media outlets with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The FBK denied this information and called this publication a "trash heap".

However, later, the director of the fund, Ivan Zhdanov, confirmed the presence of activists in the neighboring state, albeit with a reservation.

“There were actually several employees on vacation there,” Zhdanov said on the air of Ekho Moskvy.

- Someone left, someone in Russia.

We will still remain in the information field, even if someone leaves. "

Distant work

In an interview with RT, a source close to FBK confirmed the appearance of Navalny's "vacationers" in Georgia.

According to him, it was a "working visit".

The interlocutor of RT explained that in mid-May, a whole series of closed meetings of representatives of Open Russia, the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Libertarian Party started in Georgia.

According to the source, the FBK was represented by the director of the fund Ivan Zhdanov, the head of the investigation department Maria Pevchikh, her deputy Georgy Alburov, the head of Navalny's regional headquarters network Leonid Volkov and Vladimir Milov, who in 2016 acted as an associate of the unregistered presidential candidate Alexei Navalny. , and since May 11, 2017 he has been leading a weekly column on economics "Where is the money?"

in the Navalny LIVE program.

  • Instagram

Representatives of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Open Russia were also invited to the meeting.

Previously, the relationship between MBH and FBK developed nonlinearly - from attempts at joint grant projects in 2014 to ideological differences in 2019.

Then Khodorkovsky did not decide whether he would help Navalny at all in the 2024 elections.

Former FBK lawyer Vitaly Serukanov also spoke about the joint projects of Navalny and Khodorkovsky during the pre-election period of RT.

“How we will behave tactically will be seen by 2024.

We can support Navalny, we can generally <...> refuse any interaction within the framework of the elections, "Khodorkovsky said in a 2019 interview.

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In addition to Open Russia, Navalny's supporters may be supported by the Georgian branch of the Free Russia Foundation.

The FR office in Tbilisi is headed by Yegor Kuroptev, a former employee of Echo of Moscow.

The Free Russia Foundation was founded in Washington in 2014 by a group of Russian-speaking immigrants.

It is headed by a social activist, ex-employee of the Republican Institute of John McCain Natalia Arno. 

Center offset

According to Russian public figure and political scientist Sergei Karnaukhov, the series of meetings in Georgia is nothing more than an attempt to create a new foreign center for the Russian opposition.

“There is a hub for the anti-Russian destructive work of Western intelligence services: Baltic, Polish, Ukrainian.

Now Georgian is added to it, where more than 40 of Navalny's comrades-in-arms have left, ”the political scientist explained.

As Karnaukhov notes, the emergence of an anti-Russian center in Georgia may pose a threat to Moscow not only directly (as the political center of the country), but also indirectly, for example, by influencing the neighboring regions of the South Caucasus.  

"This destructive activity can spread, for example, to Armenia, where the situation is becoming more and more unhealthy," Karnaukhov summed up.

From Tbilisi to Washington

However, one of Navalny's most influential supporters, the United States, does not need a trip to Tbilisi: they continue to actively support Russian activists from Washington.

Thus, functionaries from the American Endowment for Democracy (NED, funded by the US Congress) reported that they were “in touch” with Leonid Volkov.

The head of NED Karl Gershman said (as it became known from a conversation with pranksters Vovan and Lexus) that the fund supports the Russian opposition, in particular its “smart voting” strategy.

(The prankers pretended to be the ex-presidential candidate of Belarus Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her assistant. The full transcript of the conversation was published by RT).

  • NED head Karl Gershman

  • globallookpress.com

  • © Katerina Sulova / CTK

Speaking about Navalny's structures, the sponsors from NED explained that they are counting on FBK investigative journalists as informers.

The goal is to obtain information about the deployment of Russian troops.

"Look at the deployment of the Russian army in the country and how it changes over time, and whether we should raise this issue with our cell heads who work with the Wagner group and others who track what the official and unofficial troops are doing," Barbara Haig, Vice President for Political Affairs and Strategy at NED, spoke out.

Commenting in an interview with RT on the activities of the opposition, the ex-head of the Government Information Department of the Russian Federation, Major General of the Reserve Alexander Mikhailov, expressed doubt that contacts abroad would strengthen the positions of Navalny and his supporters inside Russia: now are not the times of dissidents, when on the wave of the USSR's attempts to get closer with the West, approval from abroad served to a certain extent as a "safeguard".

“Previously, it was understood that if there were some scandals related to espionage among the non-systemic opposition represented by dissidents, then the entire ideology of dissidence would collapse.

Today the opposition has become more cynical.

And the enemy has become more cynical, and he works much more rudely than before, ”Mikhailov explained.

State Duma elections

According to a source close to FBK, the new campaign strategy for Navalny's team in Russia envisages two main directions.

Firstly, this is preparation for "smart voting" in the elections to the State Duma in September 2021.

Secondly, the involvement in protest activity of citizens who previously had little interest in politics or supported the current government.

  • Protest action in Moscow, January 2021

  • © Dmitry Golubovich / Global Look Press

To achieve both goals, the preparation of public opinion has already begun.

So, on Navalny's website, all users who were dismissed after participating in unauthorized rallies or registering on the “smart voting” website are invited to record a video and “bring the ongoing lawlessness to maximum publicity”.

The collected material is also planned to be distributed on the pages of the “smart voting” beneficiaries.

At the same time, preparations are under way for the next unsanctioned rally, which is supposed to be held in the summer, in response to the court's decision on the fund.

This is partly confirmed by the ex-head of Navalny's headquarters, Leonid Volkov.

In his streams, answering questions from supporters about the protest events, he says that the rallies will begin in response to the arbitrariness of the authorities, meaning the decision on the appeal in the case of extremism.

* The Anti-Corruption Foundation is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.2019. 

The organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.