Russiabot Newsletter 10 [01.21.2021]
Saturday protests called after Navalny's Arrest, the last 'Emir' of Chechnya Killed, Abkhazia refuses extradition to Russia, Death Note Banned in St. Pete, and Russian Airlines ask for a bailout
The 10th Russiabot Newsletter
Thursday, January 21st, 2021
Good evening.
I mentioned in my previous newsletter that 2021 would be a major year for Russia in terms of domestic politics. I’m really doubling down on that prediciton. We’re not even through the first month of the year, and already mass demonstrations have been called this coming weekend following the detainment of Alexey Navalny last Sunday.
This story has been covered extensively in English -language media, so I’ll only briefly touch on it below. I was tempted to skip over this one altogether because of a wide range of reporting available in the mainstream, but since I covered it almost real time on my twitter (@TheRussiabot) last weekend, I felt the need to offer a brief update.
Navalny’s critics —both in Russia and the West —are correct to say that his support thus far has not necessarily reflected a majority of Russia. In fact, a recent live stream on TVRain —a fairly high-quality opposition outlet —cited a Levada Center figure that about 2% of Russians support Navalny enough to turn out on the streets when he issues a call for a protest. That being said, things are a little different this time around, simply because the events of the past five months —from the day of Navalny’s poisoning, subsequent investigation, and last week’s return to Russia—have significantly increased Navalny’s “brand awareness” within Russia. Even pro-government outlets seem to be covering the various details of his story with a level of interest in the past few weeks. His name is trending on Russian social media. It’s getting harder for the Kremlin to simply dismiss him as “the Berlin patient”, or whichever dismissive lable they have used in press conferences of the past.
This weekend will be yet another litmus test to see where the population stands regarding Navalny’s movement. Will this 2% statistic cited by the Levada center prove true?
Protests are being called by Navalny’s regional offices in almost 40 cities on Saturday the 23rd. Judging by accepted invites on social media, it looks like a significant number of people are planning to show up. Keep in mind, none of these rallies have been “oficially sanctioned” by local governments, which means the riot police will likely be out in force.
This will all be starting at 2PM local to each city holding a rally (meaning, these events will scatter 2PM at varying intervals throughout the country’s 11 time zones). I’ll try to keep information coming in English, real time, through my twitter on Saturday.
Another thing to add to Navalny. Now that he’s becoming something of a household name here in the West, I think it’s equally important for Western audiences to have a full picture of Navalny’s emergence onto the Russian political scene.
Namely, his participation in the various fragments of the Russian nationalist movements of the early 2000’s. A controversial Twitter thread (ENG) by Katya Kazbek — an NYC-based Russian translator — highlighted some episodes in Navalny’s earlier political career which may have gone under the radar in English-language media.
Now, I don’t fully agree with the assessments made by Kazbek, nor do I think that she portrayed Navalny’s earlier comments on migrants in Russia in a fully accurate light. I do believe that, taken with a grain of salt, the information Kazbek provides underscores the complexity of Russian politics, and adds some context as to where Navalny came from, and how he has evolved in the past ten years.
But, it is without question, Navalny’s political movement has added a level of dynamism to Russian civic life. This is certainly not a repeat of Brezhnev-tier stagnation.
Enough, for now. Take care of yourselves, and I hope to write to you soon.
Here are the latest headlines circulating in Russia:
Russia-Wide Protests Called for the Weekend After Navalny Arrest
“The Last Emir of Chechnya” Killed in Anti-Terror Raid
Flouting Kremlin, Abkhazia Refuses to Extradite Accused Killers of Notorious Mob Boss to Russia
Popular Manga Series ‘Death Note’ Banned by Saint Petersburg Court
Russian Airline Companies Call for a Bailout from the Government
1. Protest Called for the Weekend After Navalny Arrest
On January 19th, Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation published its latest investigation, concerning a multi-billion dollar mansion in the Krasnodar Krai allegedly owned by President Vladimir Putin (outfitted by, among many other things, $800 dollar toilet brushes). The almost two-hour long film has attracted over 53 million views at the time of writing, and includes a call for protests throughout Russia on January 23rd, to challenge the government’s arrest of Navalny upon his return to Russia last Sunday.
Navalny’s regional political headquarters have organized over 40 rallies throughout Russia for this weekend, although local political administrations have not indicated that these will be approved. In Moscow, over 8,000 individuals signed up to attend the rally through social media, while smaller cities —such as Omsk — are still expecting a turnout exceeding 1,000.
Various members of Navalny’s political team — including press secretary Kira Yarmysh —have been detained by authorities in advance of the rallies this weekend.
The Federal Penitentiary Service justified its January 17th detention of Navalny at Moscow’s Sheremetevo Airport over the activist’s failure to meet the terms of his parole, set as a consequence of a 2014 suspended sentence concerning embezzlement charges. A 2017 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights determined that these charges were “arbitrary and unfounded”, which resulted in the Russian government paying a sum of 4 million rubles (~$55,000) in compensation to Navalny.
Navalny spent the previous five months recovering in Berlin following a high-profile poisoning by a nerve agent, and was unable to maintain required check-ins with his parole office.
The anti-corruption activist —following the ruling of a court in Moscow’s Khimki suburb on January 19th —is now serving a 30-day pretrial detention at Prison IZ-77, otherwise known as Mattroskaya Tishina (“Sailor’s Silence”), after the street where it is located. Navalny’s case will be reviewed on February 2nd, to determine if the Federal Penitentiary Service’s request to convert his suspended sentence is valid.
The European Union is mulling additional sanctions on the Russian government over this recent detention.
(Meduza, Novaya Gazeta, RBK, Kommersant, Lenta, Bumaga)
2. “The Last Emir of Chechnya” Killed in Anti-Terror Raid
Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, confirmed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs successfully killed 6 Islamist militants —including senior commander Aslan Byutukaev (AKA “Emir Khamzat”) —in an operation on January 20th in Chechnya’s western rural locality of Katyr-Yurt.
Byutukaev was one of the last field commanders of the Chechen franchise of the “Caucasus Emirate”, a terrorist organization active throughout Russia’s Northern Caucasus region, which declared loyalty to the Islamic State in 2015. The group’s central purpose was the formation of an Islamic Emirate independent of the Russian Federation, laying claim to territory stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.
Butukayev’s recent activity in Russia included the 2011 bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, which killed 37 and injured 173. Also in 2011, Butukayev played a role in the death of Yuri Budanov, a Russian military officer convicted of the 2000 rape and murder of a 17-year-old Chechen girl during the Second Chechen War.
Kadyrov hailed the elimination of Butukayev as the end of the Islamist insurgency in the Caucasus, as the Emir and his five associates were some of the last targets remaining on the government’s wanted list in the region. Even prior to Butukayev’s death, the Caucasus Emirate Group was reduced to a few militants operating in Chechnya’s remote regions, having suffered significant losses of critical leadership in 2015.
(RIA, Lenta, MediaZona, Grozny-Info, Fontanka, TASS)
3. Flouting Kremlin, Abkhazia Refuses to Extradite Accused Killers of Notorious Mob Boss to Russia
In an unexpected break with Moscow, the Republic of Abkhazia refused to extradite the accused killers of a notorious mob boss back to Russia.
This comes following a January 20th request by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia to hand over two men suspected in the 2009 killing of Vyacheslav Ivankov, AKA “Yaponchik” (lit. “the little Japanese Man”).
In their refusal, the Abkhaz government cited one of the Republic’s constitutional provisions, which prohibits Abkhazia from extraditing citizens to a foreign government to face criminal prosecution.
This is a surprising move, as Russia is one of the five countries (aside from Venezuela, Syria, and Nauru —among others) to recognize Abkhazia’s contentious independence following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Moscow continues to provide critical economic and military aide to a country which, by international standards, does not exist.
Ivankov was a notorious figure in organized crime both in Russia and the United States, having arrived in New York City in 1992 to unify a fragmented Russian expat criminal underground. By 1995, the mobster built a sizeable criminal empire out of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach to rival the La Cosa Nostra, eventually facing arrest by the FBI in 1997 on charges of extortion. Ivankov was deported to Russia in 2004, where he dodged murder charges, and continued machinations in the country’s criminal underground. In July 2009, the mobster was shot in Moscow by a sniper —allegedly using a Dragunov Rifle — while mediating a truce between Georgian mobsters.
(Vedomosti, Kommersant, RIA)
4. Popular Manga Series ‘Death Note’ Banned by Saint Petersburg Court
Citing dangerous impacts to the psychology of children, a Saint Petersburg regional court banned the distribution of popular manga/anime series Death Note through the jut.su streaming service, which may expand to all anime streaming services pending a ruling by the Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications (Roscomnadzor).
Death Note is the story of a high school student who embarks on a vigilante career after finding a demonic notebook, which grants him the ability to kill anyone whose name is written in its pages.
Individual activist groups in Russia have sought to ban the Japanese series following the 2013 suicide of a 15-year-old girl in Yekaterinburg, who owned copies of the manga.
Similar bans on Death Note have been passed in various Chinese localities, and was attempted in New Mexico in 2010.
The ban by Saint Petersburg’s Kolpinsky District Court also extends to Inuyashiki and Tokyo Ghoul, which the Court ruled contained similar scenes of a disturbing nature for children. Naruto, a globally popular ninja series, is presently undergoing evaluation by the court.
Prior to passing its decision, members of the court were treated to a private screening of the anime(s) in question.
5. Russian Airline Companies Call for a Bailout from the Government
Russia’s 24 airline companies —through their common membership in the Air Transport Operators’ Association (ATOA) —called on the Federal Ministry of Transportation to issue a 53 billion ruble (~$716) bailout package from the Federal budget for 2021, to cover losses in revenue faced in the air travel industry as a consequence of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The anticipated bailout would cover gaps in revenue up until this June.
Last Year, the government paid about 21 billion rubles (~284 million) to assist in covering losses encured between cuts in domestic and interantional travel between February and January 2020 - when companies experienced a 46% drop in traffic.
The Russian ATOA maintains that these Federal bailouts are the only way to avoid the bankruptcy of Russia’s many carriers during the course of the pandemic.
(Vedomosti, Kommersant, Ura)