Why cannot they just protest against Putin? 🧵
I’ll try to answer. The following is based on my own knowledge. Note that I don’t live in Russia since 9 years back — all the info I share now is from friends whom I follow in social media. Due to that reasons my information can be slightly incorrect. If so, I hope to get some correction as already happened in Twitter.
Here is copy-paste from Twitter thread with some corrections that I already got.
First of all, Russian people DO protest. Even now (you’ll see later why I say “even”). They protested against all the major pressure actions: Navalny poisoning and imprisoning, fake elections, persecutions of activists, new mad laws. The protests are systematic and ongoing. The additional info I got after posting this: The protests in 2014 (Crimea annexation and starting the Donbass war) were one of the most massive in the last years.
By the law, the protest had to be allowed by the municipality (obviously controlled by the government, there are no independent municipality administrations in Russia). The protest's organizer must apply 3 (I was corrected: 10-15 days) days before and get permission. You can figure out that it’s almost never given. The additional info I got after posting this: Because of 10-15 days delay, the activists cannot be as quick as they would like to be.
If the protest happens without permission, its participants can be arrested (by the law, everything is “legal” here), fined, and held under arrest for up to 15 days. This is a restriction of liberty but not yet a criminal record (read further for that).
Was a dog left at home? Kids? Elderly relatives who need care (even fully disabled)? These things are not taken into account. Going to protest one needs to agree with a friend to take care of all these things “just in case”. Obviously, this “backup” friend cannot participate in protests.
If kids are taken to the protest with parents, that by the law is considered as putting them in dangerous situations. Ends up with deprivation of parental rights. Russian orphanage houses is a separate topic, but believe me, you don’t want your kids to get there. Even for a week. If one participates in a "not allowed" protest for 2nd time, they are considered real criminals. The punishment for such a crime is up to 5 years in prison. At this point, you might want to google for "Russian prison" images and read about systematic tortures happening there.
In theory, there could be so many people at a protest that the forces wouldn't have enough capacity to catch them all. But if we analyze the numbers, you'll see that the challenge is enormous.
The so-called "National Guard of Russia" holds back the protests. Their personnel is approximately 340,000. They are not like police but more like an army, an internal army, to fight against their own ppl. They have automatic weapons etc.
The Guard is very mobile; they can be set from one region to another in a few hours. The disposition is rapid and… effective. Guards from another region don't have relatives and friends there. So, they have no limits when they do their job.
In urgent cases, the Guard can be empowered with other forces such as SOBR, OMON, local police, army. Altogether these forces are about 3 million people. If you want to overbeat them, your protest must be of 30 million people, which is obviously not realistic.
What about not physical protests? It could be possible to spread information on social networks. Well, that's also not that easy. Almost everything that is slightly against Putin and the regime can be dangerous to post. Spreading information about "not allowed" protest action is a crime.
Posting (and resharing!!!) "extremist" texts, photos, and videos are crimes. That "extremism" has a very, very wide definition. For example, these days, the "no war" slogan is considered extremist.
If one is a notable activist, they get personal approaches. For example, one of Navalny's comrades reshared Rammstein's video clip in 2014. In 2020 he got 2.5 years in prison for this action as the video was considered pornographic.
That story is not unique but one of many. The regular actions are turned into crimes; the activists either end up in prison or run abroad. The worst thing here is that not only an activist can be under pressure, but their closest relatives such as their parents (old and unhealthy, yes).
Since the war has started, Russian people have protested every day. But that's the facts I got from (already banned by today) independent media: 4000 ppl got arrested in the 1st day after the war had started. In the following days, the numbers were lower but altogether ~ 7-10 thousand.
Yesterday, a group of kids was arrested. They had posters says "no war" with flowers and funny kids' drawings around. Photos here: https://twitter.com/_A_Vit_/status/1498780353636483072
Famous Leningrad siege survival Elena Osipova has been arrested twice: 6 days ago and yesterday. Her poster was "no war, please". That is her 2nd time in protest, so she is a criminal now. Maybe her age (81) will be considered, and she doesn't get into prison. Maybe. Let's hope.
I don't have the strength and time to look for other examples, sorry. But I hope there is a bit more clarity on the machinery behind the regime.
And the sweetest part. Since today a Russian is not allowed to spread "fakes" about the war. Fake is any info or interpretation different from the official. For example, calling it "war" is not allowed; it is a "special operation." The punishment is 15 years in prison.