Yesterday's protests by Alexei Navalny's supporters turned into their moral defeat, says Russian publicist Irina Alksnis.
In her opinion, the main thing at the end of the day was that Russian society “in addition to the non-super-massive nature of the actions, saw the emphasized correctness and restraint of the security forces,” the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In most places, no incidents occurred at all, despite the uncoordinated nature of the event. People came out, law enforcement officers ensured order, people dispersed - thanks to everyone, everyone is free.
But the most interesting thing, of course, concerns those places where excesses did take place... The most vulnerable point of power in such events is the unreasonable use of force and excessive police brutality, or the successful creation of the appearance of such on the part of opponents... This not only did not happen - it happened exactly the opposite. I don’t know what instructions were given to the riot police and the police, but one can only admire their restraint. And it seems that the situation for the organizers-puppeteers turned out to be so desperate that they were forced to go all-in.
And they lost. Because instead of footage of subtly staged setups by law enforcement officers, all day long there were videos of attacks on them by participants.
Plus the general atmosphere that these savages created with the destruction of urban spaces, firecrackers, smoke bombs and so on.
And it doesn’t matter at all that they were a minority among the participants - they were the ones who became the face of the protest in the eyes of society.
And the inclusion of more stringent methods by the police when arresting the average citizen after everything he has seen during the day gives rise to only one reaction: give him one more blow to the spine with a stick!
It is the totality of these circumstances that will determine people’s attitude towards both the opposition and the authorities,” Alksnis believes.
In her opinion, the thesis that “Russia is at a crossroads and right now is choosing which way to go – “like in Ukraine” or “like in Belarus” - is also untrue.
“People don’t realize that the country has made a choice for many years and is following the path “like in Russia.” This also applies to the activities of the opposition. Neither the Ukrainian mess nor the Belarusian tin is acceptable for us,” Alksnis summed up.