As protests swell in Khabarovsk in Russia’s far east, the specter of miners’ strikes three decades ago in the Kuznetsky Basin should not be far from Vladimir Putin’s mind. The stoppages started in the summer of 1989, quickly spread across the Siberian mining region and beyond, and became a key factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
OP-ED
Brian Whitmore: The ghosts of protests past
People hold a banner reading "Freedom for Furgal!", during an unauthorised rally in support of Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region who was arrested a week ago, in the Russian far eastern city of Khabarovsk on July 18, 2020.
