Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny hardly poses a serious threat to President Vladimir Putin, but he certainly is a threat to someone powerful in Russia. Although he has been detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport upon his return to Russia from Germany, that does not necessarily mean that the 44-year old politician will spend a lot of time behind bars.
Navalny has been detained due to the alleged violations of his 2014 suspended prison sentence for embezzlement. A Moscow judge has jailed him for 30 days, pending his trial until February 15. What happens next is unclear, though. The opposition activist and anti-corruption campaigner has already served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-Kremlin protests. Still, the very fact that he was always released suggests that Russian authorities never really planned to completely silence Navalny.
It is worth noting that Navalny was placed under house arrest and prohibited from communicating with anyone other than his family, lawyers, and investigators on 28 February 2014. Although the home arrest prohibited use of Internet, the opposition politician and his team kept using social media and criticizing Russian authorities. If the Kremlin was really afraid of Navalny, as Western mainstream media try to portray, he would have been unlikely to be released from house arrest.
The opposition figure has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged poisoning in August 2020. Navalny was brought to Berlin’s Charite clinic from Siberia after he fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He was discharged from Charite a month after his admittance but opted to remain in Germany to continue his rehabilitation. Navalny, as well as many Western leaders, claimed that he was poisoned with the Soviet-style military-grade nerve agent known as Novichok while on a trip in Siberia. The Kremlin, on the other hand, denied involvement, saying it has seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
As the Russian leader pointed out, if the Russian special services had wanted to poison Navalny, they would have taken it to the end. Indeed. Navalny’s alleged poisoning was used as another Western instrument against Moscow. The European Union has already imposed restrictive measures against some Russian citizens over their alleged involvement in the incident with Navalny, and it is not improbable that the West will keep imposing sanctions on Moscow, especially if the opposition figure remains in prison after February 15.
In the West, Alexey Navalny is often seen as a “Russian opposition leader”, although his approval ratings in Russia, not including Moscow and Saint Petersburg, are very low. In addition to that, there is no such thing as an opposition leader in Russia. According to most recent polls, Russia’s senior opposition politicians Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Gennady Zyuganov are far more popular than Navalny, who attracted support from only two percent of those surveyed. The Kremlin critic is not even a leader of the so called anti-systemic opposition, since there are several factions with completely different ideological backgrounds.
Although in the West, Navalny is often described as a liberal politician, in Russia he is often portrayed as a far-right Russian nationalist, as well as an anti-Muslim and anti-migrant extremist. It is worth mentioning that Navalny does not see Crimea as part of Ukraine but rather as an integral part of Russia, which is completely opposite to the official Western policy on Moscow’s incorporation of the Crimean Peninsula into the Russian Federation in 2014. Still, the West decided to turn a blind eye on this segment of Navalny’s rhetoric and focused on his criticisms of Putin instead.
The opposition figure is reportedly hoping for success in the parliamentary elections in September, although at this point it is unlikely that his Russia of the Future party will pass the five percent threshold. Thus, it remains unclear why the Kremlin would aim to eliminate a politician whose approval ratings are very low. Given that he is an anti-corruption activist, it is not improbable that certain Russian oligarchs, possibly even close to Kremlin, felt resentful over Navalny’s actions. Also, there is speculation that Navalny is seen as a threat by certain Russian security structures. All that, however, still does not mean that Putin aimed to kill Navalny.How would the Russian leader benefit from such an operation?
One thing is for sure – relations between Russia and the West will remain tense, regardless of Navalny. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, wrote on Twitter that she condemns the detention of Alexei Navalny by the Russian authorities.
“They must immediately release him and ensure his safety. Detention of political opponents is against Russia’s international commitments.”
The very term “international commitments” has been reserved mostly for inferior countries that are heavily dependent on the Western powers. If Russian authorities, under pressure from the West, eventually release Navalny, the Kremlin propagandists will undoubtedly try to portray it as another of Putin’s geopolitical victories. However, in the eyes of the Russian opponents in the West, such an action will be interpreted as yet another demonstration of Putin’s weakness.
For many authors, Putin already demonstrated weakness and fear by arresting Navalny. According to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia, states are developing an allergy to opposition — but systems that cannot accept dissent will not survive it. The upcoming weeks and months will show if the case of Navalny will have a serious impact on the political situation in Russia.
Image credit: MItya Aleshkovskiy
