Early Spring Galvanization
As opposition street protests continue in Russia, although on a smaller scale than last month, the ruling elite started undertaking retaliatory measures to prevent the protests from continuing. Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s main organization, Open Russia Foundation, was declared undesirable, making its employees and active supporters potential targets for criminal prosecution while Alexei Navalny was attacked on the streets and suffered a dangerous eye trauma.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin faced strong resistance from Muscovites who were to be offered replacement apartments as part of a large-scale renovation project. Failed legal, public communication and public engagement efforts resulted in tens of thousands of people strongly dissatisfied with the initiative.
The use of chemical weapons in Syria caused another escalation as the US cruise missile strike response increased tensions both between the countries’ diplomats and between the military on the ground in the region. The only beneficiary of the escalation is likely the Syrian government as the situation effectively prevented Russia and the US from achieving a full-scale agreement on the country’s future any time soon.
Somewhat counterintuitively, Russians are less inclined to remove Lenin’s body from public access in the Mausoleum on the Red Square than they were few years ago.
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