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As the trial judge for Alexei Navalny read his verdict, sending him to a penal colony for more than two and a half years, the anti-corruption investigator and opposition activist sent a message to his woman: “Do not be afraid. Everything will be alright.”
But as he was led out of the courtroom, it was clear that his punishment marked a turning point in President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to silence opposition figures, and a new chapter in the use by the Kremlin of the Russian justice system to thwart dissent.
“They are trying to silence people with these show trials. Lock this one to scare millions of others. One person takes to the streets and they lock up five more to scare another 15 million, ”Navalny said in a fierce speech 15 minutes before being sentenced.
Mr Navalny is the most prominent Kremlin critic to be jailed since oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was arrested in 2003 on charges widely seen as retaliation for his politics.
The Khodorkovsky trial marked a turning point in Mr. Putin’s first presidential term, abruptly ending a period when he flirted a lot with the West – even lending support to the US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 . This marked the start of a campaign against Russian oligarchs who were forced to display their loyalty or sell their wealth to more flexible tycoons.
After Mr. Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment, Russia entered a period of “managed democracy” in which the Kremlin brought opposition parties and most of the media to heel.
But Mr Navalny’s prison sentence reveals a Kremlin not in the mood to tolerate dissent. Police have arrested more than 10,000 people at rallies in support of Mr Navalny since returning to Russia last month from a German hospital where he had been treated after being poisoned.
“[The Kremlin] wants to send a message and the system must produce this message, ”said a senior European diplomat in Moscow. “The verdict was the only verdict allowed.”
So many protesters have been treated in Moscow detention centers in the past 10 days that those unlucky enough to be dragged into the end of recent rallies found themselves being held in police trucks in weather -11. ° C for days at a time.
Hundreds of people could face charges under a repressive list of new laws that virtually ban spontaneous protests, criminalize obstruction of traffic, and could be used to block YouTube, the site Mr. Navalny built on its base.
“The current situation is only the beginning,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R. Politik, a Russian-focused political think tank, wrote on Telegram. “A flywheel has been set in motion, which pits the most powerful repressive inertia against any manifestation of ‘out-of-systemism’ – this will affect activists, journalists, bloggers, media, NGOs, as well. as spectators, witnesses, students and teachers. “
The crackdown shows how much the stakes have risen since Mr. Navalny rose to prominence during protests against Mr. Putin’s return to power in 2011. Afterwards, the authorities seemed visibly reluctant to jail him.
A demonstration of a few thousand people near the Kremlin in central Moscow in 2013 was enough to see Navalny released on appeal a day after a court found him guilty of fraud. A year later, the courts spared Mr. Navalny a prison sentence, but jailed his younger brother Oleg for three and a half years; Mr. Navalny compared the decision to a “hostage-taking”.
The Kremlin acted as if Mr Navalny was a minor irritant: He served 13 short prison stays for protests against Mr Putin, but avoided a longer prison term.
Gradually, however, the activist grew too big to ignore. In a pipe-dreaming presidential race in 2017, he opened offices across the country and staged American-style election rallies, even though he knew he had no chance to vote. The aim, Mr Navalny later said, was to show the Russians that another kind of young, web-savvy, independent politics was possible.
Conversations with ordinary Russians across the country convinced him that he could tap into growing anger over corruption, declining living standards and injustice. A day after his arrest in January, he posted a video alleging that the oligarchs had spent billions on a lavish Black Sea palace for Mr. Putin, complete with a casino, ice hockey rink and “aqua disco” . He has amassed over 100 million views on YouTube.
“We have tens of millions of people who live without the slightest prospect of a future,” Navalny said during his hearing. “And they’re all silent. They are trying to silence people with these show trials.
The Kremlin’s draconian treatment of Mr. Navalny may stem in part from fear of that anger as Mr. Putin’s approval ratings hit an all-time low. But it may also indicate that, in Mr Putin’s eyes, Mr Navalny has somehow crossed the line from adversary to traitor and needs to be treated appropriately.
After Mr Navalny helped denounce an FSB strike team – the agency once chaired by Mr Putin – and deceived one of them into admitting his role in the poisoning, the Kremlin angrily declared that he was an American agent.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin RT propaganda network, said Mr. Navalny’s stint in prison was a response to “what the Western secret service and the so-called civilized world are trying to do to Russia” by overthrowing his government.
“No objective and sane person can fail to realize that Navalny is an instrument of this enormous machine which crushes the whole world, chewing up countries and states, without ever choking on them,” he said. -she said during an RT broadcast. “This toolkit has been going crazy for too long.”
But despite threats, Mr. Navalny chose to return to Russia and rally his supporters.
“I mean there are a lot of good things in Russia now. The best are the people who are not afraid – people who do not look elsewhere, who will never hand over our country to officials who want to trade it in for palaces and aqua discos, ”he said.
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