The uncoordinated actions that took place on January 23 for the release of blogger Alexei Navalny did not become a cause for concern for the Russian authorities.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, Kommersant writes.
As a source in the presidential administration told the publication, Saturday’s actions in size and composition did not differ much from ordinary protests, and therefore the attitude towards them was calm. In his opinion, these protests also do not require any specific reaction, such as tightening legislation or holding counter rallies in support of the president.
The newspaper also reports that Saturday's events were discussed at a seminar for vice-governors on domestic policy in the Moscow region.
The meeting participants said that the head of the presidential department for internal policy, Andrei Yarin, and the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, spoke on this topic. They also discussed the “culture of protest”, compared Russian actions with Belarusian ones, and the regional authorities received a general instruction “not to make harsh gestures, but to give an adequate response in accordance with the law.” “They criticized those who had many children and who did not work off the aggression of the protesters; they praised those who did not have a large crowd - for example, Khabarovsk,” said one of the interlocutors.
In general, the vice governors agreed that their expectations from the protests were too high, since nothing extraordinary happened.
“The tools have long been known, the tasks have been set, the strategy has not changed,” said one of the vice-governors.
Another source familiar with the situation in Moscow believes that the capital coped with the installation of “maximum correctness”: “For the first two hours, law enforcement officers did not touch citizens who did not violate public order. There were no serious injuries to the protesters; law enforcement officers caught teenagers and parents with young children in the crowd so that they would not be run over or harmed.”
In addition, the functioning of the city did not stop: public transport worked, there were no incidents either in the metro or at city facilities.