As Russia heads into national local and regional elections on September 8, what do ordinary voters make of the country's 2019 summer of protest? Journalist Vadim Kondakov, host of Current Time’s Unknown Russia series, took to the streets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg to find out.
The mother of a Russian blogger sentenced to five years in prison for extremism related to a social media posting has expressed shock at the punishment meted out to her son, suggesting it was meant to send a warning to Russia’s opposition.
Demonstrators estimated to number in the low thousands again defied authorities on August 31 and marched in central Moscow, ignoring officials' warnings and pressing demands to let independent candidates run in upcoming city council elections.
In a video shot at a protest rally in Moscow on August 31, protesters surrounded a correspondent for the state-owned Rossiya 1 television channel, chanting "Propaganda" and "Stop lying."
Thousands of Russians marched in central Moscow as opposition activists defied authorities' warnings and pushed ahead with a protest focused on upcoming city council elections. The August 31 action was the latest in a series of confrontations between liberal activists and Moscow city authorities -- and the Kremlin. A leading opposition figure, Lyubov Sobol, speaking to journalists during the protest, said that repression will not work and also called on Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to resign.
Though over 3,700 kilometers away, TV scenes of Moscow protesters struggling with riot police during a Saturday, July 27 rally for the registration of opposition and independent candidates in upcoming city council elections resonated with 35-year-old Kyrgyz illustrator Tatyana Zelenskaya.
A Russian couple threatened by prosecutors with losing their three children for bringing them to a protest rally in Moscow have called their prosecution "a lawless attempt to frighten all the activists."
A Russian artist who goes by the pseudonym Zimorodok creates collages that combine famous works of art with shots of riot police making detentions at unsanctioned rallies for the registration of independent and opposition candidates in Moscow’s September 8 city council elections. “You have to react somehow,” he said of the hundreds of detentions – often without cause, rights activists say – that have occurred since mid-July.
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