Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: what’s happening now?

The incarceration of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Russia was widely expected by Russian observers, but experts say what comes next likely depends on the momentum of protests in support of Navalny, whether the West decides to punish Russia and how the Kremlin responds to growing unrest . in the country.

Considered one of Putin’s most prominent critics, Navalny was jailed for three and a half years on Tuesday for parole violations, allegations he and his team made were fabricated and politically motivated.

The judge said the year Navalny has already spent under house arrest (about 10 months) will be deducted from his imprisonment. Navalny’s defense team has said it will appeal the court’s ruling.

Protests against Navalny’s initial detention in mid-January and immediately after his return to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated for nerve poisoning since last summer, have been seen all over Russia for the past two weekends, and again on Tuesday outside the Moscow court where the verdict was passed.

The ruling was widely condemned by Western governments, but the US and Europe for the time being did not threaten to threaten Russia with further sanctions and both called for Navalny’s immediate and unconditional release.

US Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, hinted in a tweet that more sanctions could be imposed on Russia, which is already operating under Western restrictions due to the 2014 annexation of Crimea and interference in the 2016 US election , among other crimes. .

Timothy Ash, a senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, believes there will be more sanctions.

“We may not see this action this week, it could take weeks / a few months, but I think we will be surprised by the scope / magnitude of it,” Ash said via email.

“This is not a case of a fragmented approach, but an overall picture, a joint / holistic approach to counter the threat from Russia. And attack Russia hard from the start – to make Putin clear: we know what you are doing, we’ve marked your card, we know you only understand power, and here it is. “

Ash said he “expects a progressive approach to push back Putin’s offensive campaign against Western liberal market democracies.”

While the breadth and magnitude of the West’s response to Russia remains to be seen, it could also have a knock-on effect on the momentum of pro-Navalny protests in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that police were justified in using harsh methods to break protests from Navalny’s supporters who had gathered outside the Moscow court where the hearing took place.

Peskov also said calls by Navalny’s allies for Russians to take to the streets after his imprisonment on Tuesday were provocative, Reuters reported. According to the monitoring group OVD-Info, more than 1,400 Navalny supporters, spread over 10 cities, were detained on Tuesday.

The US, Germany and France are among some of the Western countries that have condemned the violence against protesters in Russia and called for Navalny’s immediate release.

Russia has rejected these criticisms, defended police response to protests, and accused Western countries of double standards.

“Regarding the events taking place in Russia, and not just with Navalny, the coverage of the West is selective and one-sided,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference on Wednesday, Tass news agency reported.

“That hysteria, which we have heard about the Navalny trial, is exaggerated,” he added.

Daragh McDowell, Russia’s chief analyst at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, said Navalny’s conviction and incarceration would “be a huge blow to the opposition that has lost one of its most effective organizers and communicators.”

The movement was further dented because other members of Navalny’s national organization were also targeted for arrests and detention, he noted, and whether the protests could continue at their current level was an unknown.

The main question is whether the current wave of protests unleashed by Navalny’s arrest have reached a point where they can sustain themselves and will continue even if he and his team are removed from the field. The decision to jail him will certainly lead to at least a momentary increase in street protests, accompanied by a corresponding increase in arrests and aggressive police brutality, “McDowell noted.

Experts warn that Putin is even more concerned: the protests that have taken place so far also reflect the general public’s discontent with Russia’s ruling class, the prevailing corruption and kleptocracy, and a decline in living standards.

McDowell said that a “major concern for the Kremlin should be that the protests, while triggered by Navalny’s arrest, are more the result of longer-term social and economic stagnation … the protesters are not so much driven by Navalny’s political program as well is a general feeling of being fed up with the status quo. ”

Despite an apparent lack of political alternatives to Putin, who McDowell viewed as not in imminent danger of overthrowing, “ his political regime is based not so much on active support as on tolerance and acceptance, and it seems that the Russian population is rapidly approaching its borders. “

That sentiment was echoed by Christopher Granville, director of EMEA and global political research at TS Lombard, but he warned of a possible “stalemate” between the Kremlin and the opposition.

The root cause of the current political ferment in Russia is the long reign of Vladimir Putin entering its terminal phase. Far from dispelling uncertainties (even at the expense of more acute short-term turbulence), this endgame is now more likely to drag on, with festering social tensions and polarization, ”he said in a note on Tuesday.

Granville said his daunting outlook for Russia, which also negatively affected the country’s economic growth prospects and asset valuations, “stemmed from a key feature of Alexey Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s ruling establishment: stalemate.”

The support of both sides in Russian society is too solid to allow for quick or easy victories. Removing Navalny from the board, either through murder or, as now, imprisonment, is not a ‘solution’: far from a personality cult To be, the movement he galvanized marks a generational change. The Putin base, still multiples, meanwhile has been cemented by rational fear of instability, ”he said.