Author: Elena Gorbacheva

Margarita Zavadskaya gave an interview to “European dialogue”, which was published yesterday in the article “Coronavirus exacerbated fundamental problems that had accumulated before the pandemic” (Коронавирус обострил фундаментальные проблемы, которые накопились до пандемии). Despite the pandemic (or because of it?), the year 2020 was full of protests. Dr. Zavadskaya was asked to reflect upon the new protest trends, her answers in Russian can be found online. Read this insightful interview to find out how the imposed during the pandemic restrictions affect mobilisations, what is the difference between protests in authoritarian regimes and democracies, and what is the fate of long-term protesting.

On the 14th of February Navalny’s team decided to organise an event of a new format – “Love is stronger than fear”. Everyone who wanted to protest police brutality and arrests of Navalny and other political prisoners was encouraged to go with lights and candles into their yards at 20:00 on Valentine’s day. It is not possible to learn how many people participated in the event, though one thing is clear – police did not detain or beat up anyone, unlike during the previous protests in January and February 2021.

Margarita Zavadskaya was interviewed about the 14th of February protest by Current Time TV (Настоящее время). Doctor Zavadskaya said that the event could be counted as successful – it allowed the neighbors to get to know each other and create the new social links together with “normalisation” of the protests, which was made safe again. This is important for future protests, and the plans of Navalny’s team to resume the mobilisation later in Spring seem plausible; however, according to Margarita, it is too early to expect that there will be large protests after the Duma elections in September 2021. It is highly unlikely that the authorities would allow prominent opposition leaders to take part in the election, and this would decrease the initiative of protesters to go to the streets against electoral fraud.

Ongoing Russian protests are inevitably compared to the Belarusian ones. Margarita Zavadskaya, however, warns not to think of them as similar phenomena – in Belarus, a much higher share of the population engaged in protest activity, and the level of protest brutality there outraged not only the opposition but also the Belarusians at large. The Belarusian regime lost its popular support, while in Russia, the status quo is still supported in general.

You can watch the full interview embedded below, 08:30-24:40:

In 2021 there were already 3 protest days in Russia in support of Navalny, freedoms and rights of the Russian citizens. While they attracted thousands of people across the country, many doubt their power – after these demonstrations and those of the last years seemingly nothing changed for the better in terms of liberalisation. Meduza asked ElMaRB researchers Margarita Zavadskaya and Elena Gorbacheva together with Alexey Gilev (HSE Spb) to discuss protests in authoritarian regimes from the political science perspective. The results can be found online on Meduza website.

This week Margarita Zavadskaya was invited to Meduza’s podcast “What happened” to share her thoughts on the recent events and the transformations Russian regime has been going through. Margarita and the host Vladislav Gorin talked about the protests of the last weeks, organised by Alexey Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation team, and how the regime reacts to them. They also discussed in details the current type of Russian regime – personalistic authoritarianism – and Margarita Zavadskaya explained what it fears and how it tries to fight the incoming challenges.

While many things in Russia may seem gloomy, there are several points that can give us hope. First, the society in Russia is more mature than it has been and is not content anymore with the political system in the country. This society has overgrown the personalistic regime and is ready for changes. Second, there are now more organisations and civil associations in Russian regions (the legacy of 2011-2012 ‘For Fair Elections’ movement) and there is also the network of Navalny offices opened after 2017 – this infrastructure and the social capital and experiences that accumulate after each protest wave give Russian opposition a chance for success.

Listen to the full version of podcast in Russian on Meduza website or at the podcasts platform you use.

Alexei Navalny has been in the constant centre of attention since his return on 17th of January in Russia, after months of therapy in Berlin that followed a luckily failed attempt on his life with Novichok poison in August 2020. Finnish media also devotes a lot of attention to the Russian opposition leader, and on Saturday Helsingin Sanomat published a large piece on the women that stand behind Navalny (Naiset Navalnyin takana).

Margarita Zavadskaya was interviewed for the article and she shared her opinion on the role of women in opposition and argues that it is too early to speak about their breakthrough in Belarus, where Tsikhanouskaya and other powerful women became the leaders when the previous, “typical” opposition leaders who were their husbands and male colleagues, were imprisoned or sent abroad. In the case of Russia, Lyubov Sobol and other FBK women, like regional coordinators Ksenia Fadeyeva from Tomsk and Lilija Сhanysheva from Ufa are seen by authorities already as full-blooded opposition politicians.

The full version of the article can be found on HS website.