Most of Putin’s critics have been killed, are serving long sentences or have emigrated abroad. Nevertheless, some do not give in.
Among them is Ekaterina Doentsova. She speaks out against Putin and builds a new political party. “I have taken on this responsibility and must continue until the end,” she says News hour.
Doentsova worked as a local television reporter in the town of Rzhev and entered local politics there. When she reported to the electoral commission six months ago, she was told that she was not allowed to compete for the presidency. There are alleged to be errors in her application.
It was not the first time that she had been thwarted by the authorities, she said News hour in a conference room outside Moscow where she works with allies in her party. She had to postpone her party conference several times. “Our conference in March was canceled because the room rental was suddenly canceled. The sewerage was reportedly broken.”
“The police came by because someone had reported that a member of an extremist organization would be present. That is why everyone’s papers had to be checked. That took exactly as long as the time we had rented the space.”
Despite the major restrictions, her supporters in the room think she can be a thorn in the Kremlin’s side. “She may be the only one in Russia who can ensure that citizens are not there for the state, but that the state is there for us,” said one attendee.
Another says: “There is a nice Russian proverb: you don’t kick a dead dog. The fact that they make things difficult for Ekaterina means that she can become someone’s competition.”
Pressure valve for displeasure
These people belong to a small minority in Russia. According to the independent pollster Levada, nine in ten Russians support President Putin.
Professor of Russian politics Samuel Greene investigates how Putin achieves this. The relationship with his people is quite complex, says Greene. Russians understand that their political system is unfair, but Putin keeps up the appearance that they have a choice. “The Kremlin wants to prevent critical Russians from thinking that they have only one option: to resist with radical means.”
The fact that the Kremlin allows some politicians like Doentsova to have their way to a certain extent is probably deliberate. “It creates a pressure valve for public discontent,” says Greene. “But we should have no illusions about the impact of such a party on Russian politics.”
According to Greene, what Putin wants to convey to his people above all: nothing will change with me. “In his inauguration speech, he did not propose any new policies. He talked about a future that looks the same as the present and the past.”
Putin also spoke about the West: “We do not avoid discussions with Western countries. It is up to them whether they choose a policy of aggression or a path of cooperation and peace.”
To his people, Putin wants to appear as the moderate party in the struggle with the West, says Greene. Partly for this reason, the professor expects that Putin will not opt for a new large-scale mobilization. “That’s something most Russians would find shocking.”
To prevent large-scale resistance to the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin wants Russians to be able to live their lives “as if this war has little impact on them,” Greene said. “Moreover, it will be a challenge for Putin in the coming years to have enough people at the front, in military factories and in the regular economy without it taking too much of the population.”
When is the war a success for Russia? There are different opinions about this on the streets of Moscow:
This is how Russians think about the war
To maintain enough support for the war, Putin is deliberately ambiguous about his goals in Ukraine, Greene says. “He wants the opportunity to successfully declare war when it is politically useful to him. If he tied this war to a single goal, he could be held accountable.”
That makes the work of critics and opposition politicians like Doentsova even more difficult. Nevertheless, she wants to run for president again in six years. She wants to end the war, free political prisoners and restore Russia’s ties with the outside world.
“I want my grandsons to live in a normal and free country, to see a lot of the world and to get an education wherever they want,” says a man in the conference building. “That’s what we should strive for.”
