Russia: Putin Shoots Himself in the Foot
by Judith Bergman • February 1, 2021 at 5:00 am
Navalny has been in and out of Russian jails more than ten times since 2011, when he first became the face of Russian opposition to Putin and coined the phrase that the ruling United Russia party was "the party of crooks and thieves".
"We came up with this investigation, while I was in intensive care, but we immediately agreed that we would release it when I returned home, to Russia, to Moscow, because we do not want the main character of this film to think that we are afraid of him and that I will tell about his worst secret while I am abroad." — Alexei Navalny, YouTube video, "Putin's Palace", January 19, 2021.
Thousands demonstrated -- and were arrested by police armed with stun guns and batons -- this weekend as well, voicing anger over falling living standards, shrinking political freedoms, "corruption, a skewed court system" and a political system that is rigged before "another round of fraudulent elections," possibly this spring and no later than next fall.
Putin, ironically, may largely have himself to thank. If it had not been for the arrest and jailing of Navalny, the current protest movement might have remained dormant.
Aleksei Navalny, opposition leader, anti-corruption activist and fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, returned to Russia on January 17 after recovering for five months in Germany from having been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent, Novichok. It was an event widely reported to have been an assassination attempt by Russian state agents.
Upon landing, Navalny was immediately arrested on charges that he had violated the parole terms from a suspended sentence received in 2014 for alleged fraud, a conviction that the European Court of Human Rights ruled was "arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable".
Upon his arrest, Navalny was denied access to a lawyer, and -- after a hearing that took place in a police station, which only pro-Kremlin media were allowed to attend -- jailed for an initial term of 30 days. He is due to go on trial on February 2.
