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The Real Russia. Today. Inauguration jokes, Putin’s teflon presidency, and nationwide protests

Source: Meduza

Monday, May 7, 2018

  • Internet users have some fun on Inauguration Day
  • Russians tell pollsters that they want reforms, but they still love Putin
  • Mobile phone service goes funny in Moscow during Saturday’s protests
  • Officials open a felony case against a supposed demonstrator in St. Petersburg
  • Meduza reports from the center of Moscow’s anti-Putin rally
  • Photos from around Russia at Saturday’s protests
  • Human rights officials want inquiries into police brutality and negligence during the protests
  • The Cossacks who beat up demonstrators might be on Moscow’s payroll
  • A government council doesn’t like the federal censor’s latest initiative
  • Promsvyazbank might get a sanctions-evading makeover

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss 💪

⏳ I got you, babe

Well it’s Inauguration Day in Russia, again, and that must mean we’re at the Grand Kremlin Palace waiting for the six-year forecast from the world’s most famous Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who’s just about to tell us how much more winter we can expect. This being the fourth time Russians have watched Putin’s inauguration, many on social media scrutinized the little things, like Natalia Poklonskaya’s apparent fatigue, a bit of last-minute housekeeping on the presidential rug, and the fanciest guest to attend the ceremony: Steven Seagal.

🍳 The teflon presidency

According to a new national survey by the Levada Center, Russians say Vladimir Putin’s greatest successes in his third presidential term were “returning the country to the status of a great power” (47 percent of respondents) and “stabilizing the situation in the North Caucasus” (38 percent). Russians were less thrilled about Putin’s ability to ensure income equality (45 percent of respondents say he failed here), and nearly a third of the poll’s respondents said Putin failed to raise wages, pensions, stipends, and social benefits. Three years earlier, only 15 percent of Russians said the president didn’t keep his word on this issue.

According to a new survey by the state-run pollster VTsIOM, almost 90 percent of Russians say the country needs at least some degree of transformation. More than half of respondents (59 percent) told VTsIOM that Russia needs big changes, while another 30 percent said the country needs changes in some spheres. Just two percent of those polled said Russia doesn’t need any reforms. Meanwhile, 82 percent of respondents said they approve of Vladimir Putin’s job performance as president.

Protesting Putin’s return ✊

📱 Can you stream me now?

Mobile phone service went a little fuzzy during Saturday’s anti-Putin protest at Pushkin Square in Moscow. In correspondence between Tele2 and a client (published on the Telegram channel ZaTelekom), the company said the service disruptions were the result of “work to improve communications quality.” That work apparently coincided exactly with the timing and location of Saturday’s rally against the president.

Also over the weekend, the blogger Denis Styazhkin published his correspondence with the technical support desk at the telephone company Beeline, which told him that his number had been blocked temporarily (during Saturday’s demonstration) on orders from the police. Beeline later denied this claim.

⚖️ Let the felony charges roll

Officials in St. Petersburg have charged a 25-year-old man with attacking a police officer on May 5, accusing him of punching an officer in the face and knocking out one of his teeth. The man, Mikhail Tsakunov, faces up to 10 years in prison. Tsakunov says he didn’t actually attend the city’s anti-Putin protest and was detained with his friends by riot police, who also allegedly beat him up, before a court fined him 10,000 rubles ($170) for participating in an unpermitted rally.

👮‍♂️ On the ground in Moscow

On May 5, thousands of Russians across the country protested against Vladimir Putin’s upcoming inauguration. In Moscow, where demonstrators did not get a permit from city officials, the police detained more than 700 people (almost half of the 1,600 protesters detained nationwide on Saturday), including the campaign’s organizer, anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny. Arriving at Pushkin Square, demonstrators encountered members of the pro-Kremlin “National Liberation Movement” and men dressed as Cossacks, who antagonized and attacked them. Meduza correspondent Irina Kravtsova attended the protest and witnessed the day’s events.

📢 All around the world, we could make time rompin’ and a stompin’

On Saturday, May 5, protesters assembled in Moscow and dozens of other cities across Russia to join in a campaign organized by Alexey Navalny. United behind the slogan “He’s No Tsar to Us,” the rallies took place two days before Vladimir Putin’s inauguration on Monday, when he will begin his fourth presidential term. In the nation’s capital, people gathered at Pushkin Square and on Tverskaya Street, where protesters skirmished with “ultra-patriot” activists from the National Liberation Movement and men dressed as Cossacks. The rally in Moscow did not have a permit from the local authorities, though some of the protests around the country were sanctioned by city officials. Police had detained more than 700 demonstrators in Moscow. Nationwide, law enforcement arrested more than 1,600 protesters.

✌️ Can we all get along?

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova will ask the St. Petersburg district attorney’s office to investigate claims that local police officers used excessive force when dispersing Saturday’s anti-Putin protest. Moskalkova says she hasn’t received a single complaint about the police response in Moscow, however, where police detained more than three times as many demonstrators.

At the same time, Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council, is calling for an inquiry into how police officers in Moscow handled the presence of National Liberation Movement activists and Cossacks, who antagonized and attacked protesters.

🤜 On the payroll?

The men dressed as Cossacks who beat up protesters at Saturday’s anti-Putin rally may be on Moscow City Hall’s payroll, according to the newsletter The Bell. For the past three years, their “army” has received 15.9 million rubles (more than $255,000) in public funds for services that include “ensuring public security during mass events.”

What’s the big deal? Cossacks have attacked anti-Kremlin protesters before (and police often look the other way), but it would qualify as a “political innovation” if the state is actually contracting these groups to bully opposition demonstrators.

The government don’t like it 👎

About a week after Roskomnadzor started blocking millions of IP addresses in an effort to cut off access to the instant messenger Telegram, the agency published draft legislation that would empower it to determine independently what Internet addresses contain illegal information — “in the event that there are errors” in orders from the police or courts. According to the newspaper Kommersant, an expert government council is withholding its support for the bill, arguing that Roskomnadzor is trying to expand its powers “unreasonably.”

Internet specialists speculate that Roskomnadzor’s legislative initiative is intended to provide legal grounds for its decision to block almost 20 million IP addresses in its campaign against Telegram. The messenger remains accessible for most Russian users, but Roskomnadzor’s actions against Amazon and Google cloud computing have disrupted dozens of other online services.

You’ll never catch us, Uncle Sam 🏦

After Russia effectively nationalized it last year, Promsvyazbank is now set to play a key role in the defense industry, and officials are planning to hide its top management from the public to try to escape more targeted U.S. sanctions, sources told the newspaper Kommersant.

Yours, Meduza