• Home
  • World
  • Health
  • Style
  • Art
  • Food
  • Travel
  • Crypto
  • CBD
  • Jobs

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

What's Hot

Quick Pickled Green Beans – Spend With Pennies

July 4, 2022

A Refreshing Look at Egypt’s Ancient Pyramids

July 4, 2022

Updated Covid Shots Are Coming. Will They Be Too Late?

July 4, 2022
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Facebook Twitter Instagram Vimeo
Sun Light Day
Subscribe Login
  • Home
  • World

    Your Monday Briefing – The New York Times

    July 4, 2022

    Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates

    July 3, 2022

    Japan’s Secret to Taming the Coronavirus: Peer Pressure

    July 3, 2022

    Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates

    July 2, 2022

    From the Early Morning Sky, Shards of Hot Metal

    July 2, 2022
  • Health

    Updated Covid Shots Are Coming. Will They Be Too Late?

    July 4, 2022

    A Clunky, Reusable Mask May Be the Answer to N95 Waste

    July 4, 2022

    Researchers: Improving Eyesight May Help Prevent Dementia

    July 3, 2022

    Gas Piped Into Homes Contains Benzene and Other Risky Chemicals, Study Finds

    July 3, 2022

    Will There Be Enough Monkeypox Vaccine?

    July 2, 2022
  • Style

    Can I Wear Sneakers With a Dress?

    July 4, 2022

    Summer’s Soft Return – The New York Times

    July 3, 2022

    Bruce Katz, Pioneer of the Walking Shoe, Is Dead at 75

    July 3, 2022

    Seeing Norma: The Conflicted Life of the Woman at the Center of Roe v. Wade

    July 2, 2022

    Solveig Gold Is Proud to Be the Wife of a ‘Canceled’ Princeton Professor

    July 2, 2022
  • Art

    After ‘Rocketman’, Taron Egerton Transforms Again for ‘Black Bird’

    July 4, 2022

    ‘Demand Is Robust.’ Fireworks Come Roaring Back This Summer.

    July 3, 2022

    How Opera Houses Are Putting Puccini Into Contemporary Context

    July 3, 2022

    Ermonela Jaho, an Albanian Soprano, ‘Can Sing Your Music’

    July 2, 2022

    At Comedy Shows in Lviv, Crowds Look for Humor Amid a Deadly War

    July 2, 2022
  • Food

    Quick Pickled Green Beans – Spend With Pennies

    July 4, 2022

    How to Boil Corn on the Cob

    July 3, 2022

    Crock Pot BBQ Chicken {Easy Sandwiches}

    July 2, 2022

    Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad – Spend With Pennies

    July 1, 2022

    Creamy Bow Tie Pasta – Spend With Pennies

    June 29, 2022
  • Travel

    A Refreshing Look at Egypt’s Ancient Pyramids

    July 4, 2022

    In Athens Creativity in Art, Food and More Rises

    July 4, 2022

    Why the Travel Desk is Ending Its Pandemic Tip Sheet

    July 3, 2022

    From Seattle, Go to Bellingham for Active Days and Appetizing Nights

    July 3, 2022

    Why Airport Employees Are Striking

    July 2, 2022
  • Crypto

    The UK ‘Bitcoin Adventure’ shows BTC is a family affair

    July 4, 2022

    Top 5 cryptocurrencies to watch this week: BTC, SHIB, MATIC, ATOM, APE

    July 4, 2022

    6 Questions for Alyssa Tsai of Panony – Cointelegraph Magazine

    July 3, 2022

    Hester Peirce expresses strong support for crypto spot ETFs and regulatory structure

    July 3, 2022

    How to earn crypto passive income with forks and airdrops?

    July 2, 2022
  • CBD

    Bag the Tags! California's Eco-Absurdity

    June 30, 2022

    Ayahuasca and the Endocannabinoid System

    June 23, 2022

    Special Report on Cannabinoids & Chirality

    June 15, 2022

    Cannabis Use and Pro-Social Behavior

    June 9, 2022

    CBD Regulatory Debacle | Project CBD

    June 2, 2022
  • Jobs

    An Optimist at the Helm of IBM

    May 13, 2022

    How a Dollar General Employee Went Viral on TikTok

    April 18, 2022

    In Venice, a Young Boatman Steers a Course of His Own

    April 16, 2022

    How Panera Bread Navigated Covid, the Labor Market, Inflation and More

    April 15, 2022

    The Brooks Running C.E.O. on Beating Cancer, and Leading With Purpose

    April 1, 2022
Sun Light Day
Home»World»Navalny to the Russian Opposition: ‘Be Discouraged, a Little Bit’
World

Navalny to the Russian Opposition: ‘Be Discouraged, a Little Bit’

sunlightday3By sunlightday3September 23, 20211 Comment6 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp VKontakte Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email


MOSCOW — Two lonely figures kept vigil on a windswept bridge near the Kremlin on a recent day, watching over bouquets of flowers honoring an opposition leader, Boris Y. Nemtsov, as they and their allies have around the clock almost since the day he was slain on the spot on Feb, 27, 2015.

Some passers-by offered a thumbs up or a fist bump. Some cursed the pair. But most simply walked past, ignoring the little shrine to Russia’s much beleaguered pro-democracy movement.

“Welcome to the last 10 meters of freedom,” said Mikhail Kirtser, one of the volunteers, of the protesters’ stretch of sidewalk.

The vigil over the site, hallowed ground for the Russian opposition, has become emblematic of the extraordinary marginalization of a once-formidable pro-democracy movement that began in the late Soviet period. Over the past year, most of its leaders have been arrested or driven into exile.

Dismal results for the opposition in an election last weekend that was not free or fair only drove home a mood of defeat. The election underscored the grim reality that Russia’s pro-Western and pro-democratic opposition, a focus of American and other Western countries’ policy toward Russia for years now, has no visible strategy to regain relevance.

“Honestly, you cannot call the overall result a ‘victory,’” Aleksei A. Navalny, the foremost opposition figure, wrote from prison in a statement posted on his social media accounts. He blamed fraud for subverting a voting strategy he said would have worked otherwise.

“I won’t even write the traditional, ‘Don’t be discouraged, don’t throw up your hands,’” he wrote. “Be discouraged, a little bit.” Offering a glimmer of hope, he did say indications of what the results might have been without fraud were encouraging.

The Central Election Commission reported — as usual after Russian elections — a landslide for parties and politicians loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin. The vote in parliamentary elections cleared a seemingly easy path for Mr. Putin to seek a fifth term as president in 2024.

The pro-government party, United Russia, won just short of 50 percent of the national vote, and 198 out of 225 seats allocated in district-level elections. The Communist Party of Russia, which runs in elections as an opposition party but votes with United Russia once in Parliament, came in second place, with 19 percent. Three other parties, all seen as loyal to Mr. Putin, also won seats. No candidates in open opposition to Mr. Putin entered Parliament.

It didn’t help that Google and Apple, under pressure from the Kremlin, removed an app promoting candidates Mr. Navalny had endorsed just before the vote. That move was seen by the opposition as yet another disheartening abandonment, this time by Western big tech companies.

“One of the modern challenges is that false prophets now come to us not in sheep’s clothing, but in hoodies and stretched jeans,” Mr. Navalny wrote bitterly from prison.

Soon after the vote, infighting also broke out. Mr. Navalny blamed Aleksei A. Venediktov, the editor of the Echo of Moscow radio station — which is generally an opposition-friendly outlet — of turning a blind eye to fraud in an online voting system. Mr. Navalny called Mr. Venediktov, who had served as an election observer, a “midlevel lackey.”

With Russia’s pro-democracy groups now crushed, the center of gravity of the Russian political opposition may shift in other, unappealing directions, wrote Tatyana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Moscow Carnegie Center. The Communist Party, for example, has shifted toward open confrontation with the Kremlin with an ideology of Soviet revival more extreme even than Mr. Putin’s.

The glum results came despite years of rising discontent over Mr. Putin’s rule, as measured by polling and focus group studies. The so-called “Crimean Consensus” of broad backing for Mr. Putin during the early period of the Ukraine war on nationalist grounds has faded.

But the disillusionment is economic. Most street protests in Russia in recent years have been provincial labor actions that gained little national notice, said Yekaterina Schulmann, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a trend the Communist Party is well positioned to exploit.

In his statement from prison, Mr. Navalny offered no specific vision for the future of the opposition, other than to say it would be unpleasant. He called it a “long, hard marathon.”

Out on the Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge on a recent day, the two protesters spoke bleakly of the election outcome and its meaning for the opposition, but also kept their distance from each other.

The vigil where Mr. Nemtsov was murdered is Russia’s longest-running protest of recent times. In a starkly picturesque scene, bouquets of roses, lilies and carnations line a sidewalk, against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s red brick walls and the candy cane cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. Muscovites bring flowers daily.

A gunman shot Mr. Nemtsov, a former first deputy prime minister and opposition leader, as he walked over the bridge on Feb. 27, 2015, leaving his body, by accident or design, lying in sight of the Kremlin. Members of the opposition have taken to calling the span the Nemtsov Bridge.

After multiple attempts to clear the flowers and arrest those keeping watch — nearly all retired people — the police have mostly made their peace with the protesters. “We are weak, and that is what protects us,” said Mr. Kirtser, the protester, who is a doctor. Any larger protest, he said, would be crushed.

“They think, ‘What can these pensioners do?’” he said. “But these people are on guard for our freedom.”

And yet, even at the bridge vigil, the many fractures in the Russian opposition are on display. Two groups operate at the site. Solidarity, the unregistered political party Mr. Nemtsov helped found, wants to concentrate the limited reserve of volunteers for vigils on weekends, when more pedestrians pass. A separate group organized on Facebook that Mr. Kirtser is affiliated with advocates daily protests.

The result is a divided vigil. The Facebook group, with about 12 members, sends volunteers on long shifts around the clock on weekdays, from 11 p.m. on Sunday to 11 a.m. on Saturday. Solidarity, the unregistered party with about 18 volunteers, takes the weekends.

“Of course, everybody argued with everybody else” about how to organize the vigil, Mr. Kirtser said.

As he spoke, he pointed out a man from the competing group. “Generally, I cannot stand him at all,” he said. “But, well, when he’s out here on the bridge he’s a hero for being here and I respect him.”





Source link

Bit Discouraged Navalny Opposition Russian
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Previous ArticleYour Friday Briefing – The New York Times
Next Article Taliban’s New Rules for Afghan Journalists Raise Fear
sunlightday3
  • Website

Related Posts

Your Monday Briefing – The New York Times

July 4, 2022

Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates

July 3, 2022

Japan’s Secret to Taming the Coronavirus: Peer Pressure

July 3, 2022

Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates

July 2, 2022

1 Comment

  1. zortilonrel on December 25, 2021 6:19 am

    Hi , I do believe this is an excellent blog. I stumbled upon it on Yahoo , i will come back once again. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and help other people.

    Reply

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Demo
Our Picks

Biden Picks Bridget Brink to Be Ambassador to Ukraine

April 25, 2022

Concerns over Fed nominee may stop Senate from confirming Biden’s picks: Report

February 15, 2022
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Vimeo
Don't Miss
Food

Quick Pickled Green Beans – Spend With Pennies

By sunlightday3July 4, 20220

Pickled green beans are multi-purpose; an appetizer, side dish, or snack that everyone loves (no…

A Refreshing Look at Egypt’s Ancient Pyramids

July 4, 2022

Updated Covid Shots Are Coming. Will They Be Too Late?

July 4, 2022

The UK ‘Bitcoin Adventure’ shows BTC is a family affair

July 4, 2022

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from SmartMag about art & design.

About Us
About Us

Your source for the best news. This website was designed especially for you to surfe and read article smoothly our goal is to satisfy your needs enjoy your time and thank you!

Our Picks

Quick Pickled Green Beans – Spend With Pennies

July 4, 2022

A Refreshing Look at Egypt’s Ancient Pyramids

July 4, 2022

Updated Covid Shots Are Coming. Will They Be Too Late?

July 4, 2022
New Comments
  • israelnightclub.com on Shaken at First, Many Russians Now Rally Behind Putin’s Invasion
  • דירות דיסקרטיות בתל אביב on Strawberry Pretzel Salad – Spend With Pennies
  • law firm istanbul on OKEx shared insights on trading, regulation, DeFi and more during recent Markets Pro AMA
  • zortilo nrel on National Guard Takes On New Roles at Understaffed Nursing Homes
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Services
© 2022 Sun Light Day. Designed by Sun Light Day.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Sign In or Register

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below.

Lost password?