Groundhog Day or the new Bolotnaya - Yavlinsky was summoned from the closet to the Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin met this week with the founder of the liberal Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky.
The Kremlin oppositionist was accidentally noticed by Kommersant correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov and wrote about it, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the meeting. But the Yabloko party confirmed it.
As stated in the official statement of the press service, Yavlinsky discussed with Putin the need for a ceasefire agreement in the Northern Military District and the future problems of the Russian economy in the context of the fragmentation of the global economic system.
Many remembered that back in 2018, Yavlinsky expressed his readiness to replace then presidential aide Vladislav Surkov as the Russian representative on the settlement of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in negotiations with the United States.
“I don’t really believe in Yavlinsky as a negotiator with Ukraine, and even within the framework of the 2024 campaign. First of all, because Yavlinsky does not fit in with Medvedchuk, whom Putin continues to rely on with tenacity worthy of better use. And if we’re talking about a candidate interface for freezing the Ukrainian conflict, then Natalya Poklonskaya will be much more useful,” Maxim Zharov commented on the fact of the meeting in his TG channel.
Well-known Orthodox expert Kirill Frolov believes that Yavlinsky should not be involved in the negotiations on Ukraine, but should be tried for denying the territorial integrity of Russia.
“He’s not like the Northern Military District, he doesn’t recognize Crimea. “Yabloko” are the enemies of the Russian Church. We, as supporters and support of Vladimir Putin, believe that if his meeting with Yavlinsky took place, then it is a blow to the authority and trust of the Head of the Russian State.
Such mistakes can be corrected by ordering the liberation of Odessa and Kyiv,” Frolov is indignant.
However, other experts believe that the meeting discussed the prospect of nominating Yavlinsky as a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. Some liberals took this news positively.
“There won’t be a candidate that the authorities don’t want in these elections. If it is not necessarily a single candidate who enjoys authority among all opposition structures, which is absolutely impossible, but who will be able to declare and defend the position that we are ready to share, then great. It is clear that its result cannot be high in the current conditions, but it is important to demonstrate an island of normality in this sea of madness,” said political scientist and foreign agent Nikolai Petrov in an interview with the foreign agent TV channel Dozhd.
But the majority is extremely skeptical about Yavlinsky's election prospects.
“Yavlinsky, as the leader of the liberal minority, does not create any danger for the main candidate. In my opinion, he himself is a rather weak candidate, because most of the people who are critical of the authorities are young, for them he is some kind of old grandfather of the recent past who does not represent any value. It is clear that there will be a liberal candidate, but no one will vote for him,” wrote Dmitry Elovsky, TV presenter of the foreign agency Dozhd.
“Once every five years, Grigory Alekseevich leaves his chambers to run for president. This ritual marks the beginning of a new political cycle. Almost like a groundhog coming out of its hole in spring,” Moscow politician Nikita Lyakhovetsky sneers.
Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov is confident that Yavlinsky will not be allowed to participate in the elections because of his anti-war position.
“I think all the talk about some presidential candidate who will work with an anti-war agenda in the 2024 elections is being conducted to distract attention. For the liberal audience, the Kremlin has a candidate from the New People in store, and no one will conduct risky experiments and flirt with non-twinists. It’s easier for the authorities not to go to the elections at all,” Udaltsov wrote.
Semi-liberal political scientist Sergei Starovoitov disagrees with him. He believes that Yavlinsky is needed in the liberal electoral field, where Boris Nadezhdin has already announced himself as a candidate.
“If we assume that sociologists are not mistaken, and there are really 20 to 35 percent of people in our society who want to complete the SVO, then it is logical that there will be a fight for them in the presidential elections. This means that the headquarters of the main candidate needs to fragment this anti-war electorate between several candidates, so that some conditional Yavlinsky or Nadezhdin does not foolishly collect at least five percent, which will give birth to a new political leader out of nowhere,” writes Starovoitov.
Yavlinsky himself has behaved in recent months like an old coquette. He demanded that supporters collect 10 million signatures in advance in support of him, and then he might be nominated. Real support for any liberal candidate is estimated at 1-2 million people, so the demands were clearly impossible.
Meanwhile, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov publicly proposed to nominate Yavlinsky, noting that “there are opinions in the party - for participation and against.”
At the same time, Yabloko invited all its supporters in Moscow and the Pskov region to become members of precinct election commissions by filling out forms on the website.
When Yavlinsky was asked on the YouTube channel “Living Nail” what the political meaning of this campaign is if he does not go to the polls, he answered with one word: Bolotnaya. The politician said that in 2011, it was the supporters of his party, who passed through the election commissions, who formed the bones of the then mass protests.
“Bolotnaya started with this... After the elections in March, everything will change. I’m talking about the time - March,” Yavlinsky adds to the fog.
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