Picking your battles. Novaya Europe analysed almost 40,000 protests to see how Russia's war in Ukraine has changed civil society — Novaya Gazeta Europe

Novaya Gazeta Europe

3 days ago

Three's a crowd
The Russian constitution guarantees the right to peaceful assembly, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets. In practice, street protests are prohibited. No wonder, then, that their number has declined sharply in the past three years. But other, safer ways — petitions, legal appeals, video messages — are gaining in popularity.
The authorities usually find a far-fetched reason to stop protests going ahead, such as a rally risking the spread of the coronavirus, according to OVD-Info.
Yet people continue to take to the streets to solve non-political issues in the areas of housing and utilities, urban development and the environment.
Petitions and appeals to the authorities are a safe alternative to street protests.
'Although petitions aren't direct action, they are currently the most readily available tool of pressure,' a former local councillor and teacher explains. 'Of course, people would make a greater statement if they came out onto the streets. But that's fairly unrealistic now.'
One expert calls this 'petitioning the tsar'. People complaining to the authorities means they recognise their legitimacy. A member of PS Lab, an autonomous research group focusing on politics and society in Russia and post-Soviet regions, says that in autocracies, appeals and petitions remain one of the few legal and relatively safe ways for people to fight for their rights.
'Ultra-patriots' and communists
Before the war, Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) was the main instigator of protests in the country. The movement unleashed the largest protest of the 2010s. In January 2021, Russia declared the foundation extremist, meaning it was banned from taking part in elections or protests, and three years later Navalny died in a penal colony in the Arctic Circle.
Over the past three years, political parties and other movements have only organised 15% of protests.
Mainstream political forces cannot now criticise Putin or the war, though parties such as the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party can still speak out on local problems such as housing, utilities, education, healthcare and urban planning.
Ultra-patriotic sentiments are also much more noticeable in the regions. They form 6% of all protests. Their main mouthpiece is the National Liberation Movement (NLM), whose members petition for 'emergency powers for Putin' or to 'annul Gorbachev's decisions'. They protest in support of the war and against 'foreign agents'. They hand out their newspaper The National Course and call for nuclear weapons to be aimed at the US. In some cities, such as Irkutsk, NLM activists protest every week and are never detained.
But the vast majority of protests are organised and carried out by local people. Over the past three years, political parties and other movements have only organised 15% of protests.