The Russian opposition, forced into exile and weakened by internal conflicts, will organize its first major demonstration against Moscow’s Ukraine invasion in Berlin on Sunday, testing its political credibility in the third year of the war.
The Kremlin has in recent years eradicated any political competition at home and waged a massive crackdown on dissent, with hundreds – possibly thousands – of Russians in prison for their political views.
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With Vladimir Putin in power for almost 25 years, all of his political opponents are now dead, in prison or in exile.
The Russian opposition lost its main figurehead in February, when Putin’s rival Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in mysterious circumstances.
Yulia Navalnaya, his widow who took the helm of the movement, is one of the main organizers of the march.
Unable to operate at home, the opposition is forced to relaunch abroad, where hundreds of thousands of Russians fled in the aftermath of the February 2022 invasion.
Berlin – home to thousands of anti-Putin Russians and Ukrainian refugees – was chosen as the prime location for the march.
The protest is due to kick off at 13:00 GMT in the German capital’s center and will end outside the Russian embassy.
Navalnaya is joining forces with two other oppositionists for the rally: former Moscow city councilor and longtime anti-Putin campaigner Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who survived two poisoning attempts.
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Both Yashin and Kara-Murza were freed from prison – where they served sentences for denouncing the Ukraine invasion – after a prisoner swap with the West this summer.
“The march aims to unite everyone who stands against Vladimir Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine and political repressions in Russia,” the organizers said in a statement.
The opposition says it has three main demands: the “immediate withdrawal” of troops from Ukraine, the trial of Putin as a “war criminal” and the liberation of all political prisoners in Russia.
Reconciliation test
The event is also seen as a check for the movement, weakened by years of repression and suffering a huge blow with the death of Navalny.
The charismatic politician was the only figure in Russia who was able in recent years to mobilize thousands of people to take to the streets against Putin.
But Moscow’s Ukraine invasion has ushered in a new era of repression comparable with Soviet levels.
Thousands protested after Putin announced the shock invasion. At Navalny’s funeral last March – two years into a massive crackdown on dissent – thousands also came to pay their respects.
Since his death, various factions of the movement have been tearing each other apart in bitter conflicts.
Navalny’s team has accused the camp led by ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky of ordering a hammer attack on one of its members. Another faction accused Navalny’s anti-corruption fund of covering up the machinations of a shady banker.
The simmering conflicts have frustrated supporters, losing hope in the third year of the war.
‘Consolidate forces’
Even through messages from prison, Navalny galvanized supporters and without him the movement has struggled to regain momentum in fighting the regime.
Showcasing these struggles, Navalnaya admitted in an interview ahead of the march that the opposition currently had “no plan” on how to end Putin's regime or stop the war in Ukraine.
But with the rally, the trio of oppositionists hope to display unity and mobilize the thousands of Russian exiles who fled to Europe, including to evade military conscription.
“It is important to show we can work together to consolidate various forces in the anti-war movement,” Kara-Murza said in an interview to exiled media Dozhd earlier this month.
Despite this, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany Oleksiy Makeev criticized the event as a “walk without dignity and without consequences,” adding that it illustrated the opposition’s “weakness.”
Writing in the Zeit newspaper, Makeev argued that the three opposition figures were not doing enough to support Kyiv and call on their fellow citizens to protest in Russia.
Likewise Vitsche, the association of Ukrainian exiles in Germany, said that the event “failed to deliver a clear message” of support.
The Ukraine war is a source of embarrassment for the Russian opposition, which is reluctant to show too much support for Kyiv for fear of alienating Russians and destroying any hope of a future political career in a post-Putin Russia.
The Kremlin, which has painted oppositionists as traitors, has dismissed the march as insignificant.
Its spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the march organizers “monstrously detached from their country” and said “their opinion has no importance.”
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