Vladimir Putin’s domestic “power vertical” seems remarkably effective. Not only is he the unquestioned leader at home but he seems to be the sole arbiter and ultimate court of appeals for various bureaucratic, business and epaulet-wearing clans that hold power in Russia. Since consolidating his authority in the early 2000s, he has never faced a challenge to his power from an otherwise fractious regime where those clans constantly wage turf wars among themselves.
Meanwhile, opposition to his regime is weak and fragmented. In comparison even to the late Soviet era, repression is fairly mild and selective. Opposition figures and organizations are constantly harassed but are allowed to function. Only extremely outspoken individuals are jailed or, in some instances, murdered, both to shut them up and pour décourager les autres, as the French say.
And then there is Alexey Navalny, the most famous opposition leader with hundreds of thousands of supporters, followers and admirers across Russia, especially among idealistic, better educated young people. What he does is absolutely unique. Not only is he critical of the Putin regime, constantly calling on the entire rotten system to be dismantled and demanding free and fair elections, not only is he demonstrating repeatedly and convincingly how the Putin regime is damaging Russia’s national interests, undermining its future and squandering its resources, but his Anti-Corruption Fund attacks the absolute foundations of the system – the money that individual members of Putin’s immediate entourage have been stealing and, for all their pseudo-patriotic rhetoric, smuggling to the West. He names names, presents documents and shows pictures of all that ill-gotten, spectacularly greedy nouveau riche luxury.
Navalny has certainly not got away scot-free. He has been arrested and jailed numerous times, his brother did three years at a labor camp on trumped up charges, his family has been threatened. But considering the kind of people he has been exposing – many of whom are ruthless thugs surely responsible for contracting the murders of rivals if not murderers themselves – this seems more like a rap across the knuckles.
He’s been going after their money, which is their religion and the reason for their existence, and causing damage to their reputation. Russia being a mafia state, respect is the currency of the realm. Those who “dis” made men must pay.
Yet, Navalny hasn’t really been made to pay the ultimate price. On the contrary, his targets – billionaire Alisher Usmanov and generalissimo Viktor Zolotov – have made public video responses to Navalny’s charges, opening themselves to more ridicule for ruthlessly witty Navalny.
This is completely out of character. Sending a killer, yes. Recording a video, definitely no.
Navalny and his people are remarkably adept at ferreting out secret schemes, no-name offshore companies and properties both in Russia and abroad. True, those properties have been bought legally and the names of the buyers are properly registered. Navalny always explains how the properties were found and it sounds convincing. Yet, it’s not such an easy task. It requires thousands of man-hours of sifting through records in a variety of geographic locations. It is much easier if somebody tells you where to took.
Navalny’s apparent untouchable quality has given rise to a plethora of theories. Why isn’t he in jail, why hasn’t he met with an accident, etc. I have spoken with many people in Russia and have read even more on the subject. Everyone has his or her explanation, but none explains the phenomenon fully.
Would killing Navalny damage Putin’s international reputation? It certainly would, but that didn’t keep Boris Nemtsov alive and it’s doubtful that Russia worries about its reputation after invading Ukraine, downing a passenger airliner, attempting to poison local residents in Solsbury, etc.
Would jailing Navalny create a martyr? It might, but that has not stopped Putin from jailing Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian prisoners of war, Pussy Riot and, most recently, a Danish Jehovah’s witness.
Is Navalny protected at a high level? If so, his protector must be someone extremely high up; in fact, it has to be Putin himself because if it is anyone below him that would be an act of truculent disloyalty and grounds for expulsion from the inner circle – or worse. But if Navalny is, as the Russians say, a “Kremlin Project,” what on earth for? Why support a man whose criticism of the Kremlin is unsparing and accurate, and highly entertaining political theater to boot?
There is another possibility, however. Navalny is not a “Kremlin Project,” but what if the Kremlin itself is someone else’s project.
Actually, the very existence of Navalny and the support he seems to have suggests that there is a force behind the scenes that is more powerful than Putin and, in fact, controls Putin himself. Without a sanction from that force, Putin and his entourage can’t touch Navalny regardless of what he exposes about their pilfering and how effectively he ridicules them.
Theoretically, it makes sense. Imagine a coterie of some “grey cardinals” who have placed Putin on stage to play the role of Russia’s ruler while they themselves remain anonymous, quietly directing the show behind the scene. They can grow rich without fearing that if the regime changes, they will be expropriated, since no one knows who they are, nor suspects of their existence. They can travel abroad and enjoy life of luxury. Meanwhile, Putin is held responsible for a variety of crimes both in Russia and abroad and for creating a highly corrupt system. Once again, whenever the Putin government falls, it will be easy to blame everything that went wrong on Putin, whether he’s dead or alive.
The powers behind the throne have other reasons to stay in the shadows. They may be career criminals who simply may not cut it as international statesmen.
Still, even this explanation leaves some questions unanswered. If that group of grey cardinals see how corrupt Russia has become, the way Navalny demonstrates week after week, showing plainly that a failed state like this has no future, and if they, moreover, have control over Putin, why don’t they do something about it already?
