Opposition to Vladimir Putin in Russia

• 1. Systemic And Non-Systemic Divisions

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  The white-blue-white flag, which is currently used by various opposition groups and individuals since 2022, stands as a visual marker for the deep split within Russian dissent. This movement divides into two distinct camps that operate on completely different planes of reality. The first camp consists of parliamentary parties in the State Duma that claim to be in opposition but largely support the government's policies. These include the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia , For Truth, and New People. While they occupy seats in parliament, their role remains prescribed and domesticated according to political analysts.

  The second camp comprises non-systemic organizations that actively oppose the government and remain unrepresented in official bodies. Groups like Yabloko, the People's Freedom Party, Russia of the Future, and the Libertarian Party of Russia fall into this category. They face systematic barriers that prevent them from gaining any electoral success. According to polls from the Levada Center, about 15% of the Russian population disapproved of Putin in early 2023. This minority represents the core of the anti-Putin sentiment that drives these independent movements forward.

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• 2. Historical Protest Movements

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  One of the earliest acts of dissent against Vladimir Putin were the protests against the takeover of the independent television NTV by Putin-aligned Gazprom from the 31st of March to the 14th of April 2001. Members of the State Duma from the opposition, including Boris Nemtsov and Grigory Yavlinsky, demanded the preservation of ownership critical of the Russian government. Their demands went unmet, setting a precedent for future conflicts over media control.

  Starting from the 5th of December 2011, the day after the elections to the State Duma, repeated massive political actions erupted across Russia. These rallies continued during the campaign for the election of the President of Russia and after the 4th of March 2012, when Putin officially won the first round. The current surge of mass opposition rallies has been called in some publications "a snow revolution." A white ribbon became the chosen symbol of these protests, worn by millions who claimed widespread fraud accompanied the elections.

  In July 2018, almost every weekend, protest rallies organized against the planned retirement age hike occurred in nearly all major cities countrywide including Novosibirsk, St.-Petersburg and Moscow. Such events were coordinated by all opposition parties with the leading role of the communists. An intention to hike the retirement age drastically downed the rating of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Russia. In July 2018, just 49% would vote for Putin if the presidential elections were held at that moment.

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• 3. Post-Invasion Repression Laws

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  On the 4th of March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for spreading fake news about Russia's military operation in Ukraine. Thousands of Russians have been prosecuted under this law for criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including opposition politician Ilya Yashin and artist Aleksandra Skochilenko. Persecution was directed against pro-democracy and anti-war Russians while criticism of the Putin regime by pro-war activists and ultranationalists was largely ignored.

  According to OVD-Info, at least 14,906 people were detained from the 24th of February to the 13th of March following the invasion. This included the largest single-day mass arrests in post-Soviet Russian history on the 6th of March. More than 2,000 people were detained or fined by May 2022 under the laws prohibiting fake information about the military. In July 2022, Alexei Gorinov, a member of the Krasnoselsky district council in Moscow, was sentenced to seven years in prison after making anti-war comments at a council meeting in March. Lawyer Pavel Chikov said that this was the first jail term under the new Russian 2022 war censorship laws.

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• 4. Armed Partisan Resistance

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  In response to the invasion of Ukraine, numerous armed pro-democratic and anti-authoritarian partisan and insurgent groups have sprung up within Russia in open rebellion with the aim of sabotaging the war effort and overthrowing Putin and his regime. These groups primarily engage in guerrilla warfare against the state and utilize the destruction of infrastructure such as railways, military recruitment centers, and radio towers. Some of the most notable groups involved in the conflict include the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists regarded by The Insider as "The most active 'subversive' force" within Russia since the war began.

  Other significant entities include the National Republican Army, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the far-right Russian Volunteer Corps. They conduct assassinations and sabotage operations to harm the state directly. On the 23rd of June 2023, forces loyal to Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group began a mutiny against the Russian government. The group justified their revolt by citing the Russian Ministry of Defence's mishandling of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wagner occupied the city of Rostov-on-Don, surrounding and then seizing the headquarters of the Southern Military District.

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• 5. The Navalny Assassination Aftermath

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  Alexei Navalny died in suspicious circumstances in his harsh imprisonment at a prison colony in the Arctic Circle, aged only 47, on the 16th of February 2024. As well as endorsing Nadezhdin, Alexei Navalny and his allies had called on supporters to protest Putin during the third day of the presidential election by all going to vote against him at the same time. Authorities further aroused suspicion by refusing to release Navalny's body to his family for over a week after his death. His wife stated that his body was being kept until traces of intentional poisoning by Novichok had disappeared.

  After his death, Russians began bringing flowers to monuments to victims of political repression in cities across the country. People laid flowers at Moscow's Solovetsky Stone and the Wall of Grief. Hundreds of people across more than 30 Russian cities were detained by police merely for attending makeshift memorials to Navalny. The authorities belatedly returned Navalny's body eight days after his death. Upon his burial on Moscow thousands defied likely repression to appear in the streets to chant his name and their opposition to Putin. 250,000 people also watched a livestream of his funeral provided by his team.

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• 6. Electoral Manipulation Tactics

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  On the 8th of February 2024 Nadezhdin was barred from running due to alleged irregularities in the signatures of voters supporting his candidacy. The election commission claimed that only 95,587 of his signatures in support of his candidacy were valid, just short of the 100,000 needed to run. His team said that some of the errors the election commission had claimed existed were merely minor typos that happened when handwritten names were put into its computers. Nadezhdin published evidence showing Mayakovsky Street typed up as Myakovsky Street, the city of Salekhard misspelled as Salikhard, and one address in Rostov-on-Don typed up as Rostov-on-Dom.

  The commission also dubiously claimed that there were eleven dead people on Nadezhdin's list of signatures which disqualified his entire list of 105,000 signatures. The press contacted the man whose address had been incorrectly entered as Rostov-on-Dom, and he confirmed he had indeed added his signature in support of Nadezhdin's candidacy. Journalist Yekaterina Duntsova tried to run in the 2024 election but was quickly barred from running by the Central Election Commission, which claimed that she had made 100 mistakes such as spelling errors on her forms.

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