For those in the Kremlin who hoped that anticorruption protests on March 26 were a random episode, June 12 must have come as an unpleasant surprise. On Russia’s national holiday – marking the 1990 parliamentary declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union – tens of thousands of people went to the streets across the country to repeat their “No” to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism and corruption. Just as in March, most of those who took part in the rallies represented Russia’s young generation – university and high school students; those in late teens and early twenties; those who were raised (and in many cases born) under Putin but who are increasingly rejecting the nepotism, the lack of accountability, and the sheer arrogance of the small group that has now held power for nearly two decades. The rallies drew a wide cross-section of opposition groups – from supporters of anticorruption campaigner Alexei Navalny’s 2018 presidential bid to activists of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia movement who carried placards with the faces of Russia’s “Irremovable Regiment”- Putin and members of his close circle who have come to symbolize the corruption and abuses of his eighteen-year rule.
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Vladimir Kara-Murza: Russian opposition protests in twice as many cities than in March
Protesters shout slogans during an unauthorized opposition rally in central Moscow on June 12.
