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Meduza’s daily newsletter: Monday, September 16, 2024 What the Battle of the Leonids tells us about the state of Russia’s exiled opposition, Meta bans RT following U.S. allegations, and Doctors Without Borders forced to leave Russia

Source: Meduza

What the Battle of the Leonids tells us about the state of Russia’s exiled opposition

On the latest episode of Meduza’s podcast View of the Kremlin, cohosts Alexandra Prokopenko and Andrey Pertsev discussed the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation alleging that former Yukos executive Leonid Nevzlin ordered violent attacks on former foundation chairman Leonid Volkov and two other opposition activists. The accusations of hired assaults (and an unrealized plan to kidnap Volkov and hand him over to Russian federal agents) have led to the latest internecine fighting within the anti-Putin opposition in exile, pitting the late Alexey Navalny’s associates against Nevzlin and, by association, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Let’s break down what Prokopenko and Pertsev said on the show:

Does Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition need unified leadership?

Pertsev points out the paradox that Alexey Navalny outshined all other opposition politicians before his tragic death, making him a genuine leader, but the Anti-Corruption Foundation (which Navalny created and entrusted to his team in exile) now rejects the idea that the anti-Kremlin opposition needs unification. The group is willing to engage in “technical” partnerships for specific goals but not coalitions that require choosing shared leaders. From the foundation’s perspective, says Pertsev, broad coalitions among Russian oppositionists “just lead to pointless squabbling about who’s in charge.”

This is not how European bureaucrats view the Russian opposition, argues Prokopenko. The officials who now host these emigres prefer a single point of contact for simplified communication (which is why Belarusian politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya remains a darling in the West, despite becoming largely irrelevant back home).

The Russian opposition’s relevance challenge

Prokopenko notes that Russian oppositionists face pressure in Europe to conform to local “narrative” expectations (for example, prefacing public statements with remarks supporting Ukraine) that alienate their core constituencies in Russia. To make matters worse, adapting to Europe’s rules and adopting its political language doesn’t make the Russian opposition particularly relevant in the West. 

Pertsev and Prokopenko praise Ilya Yashin’s evolution as an opposition politician, recalling his public service in Moscow’s Krasnoselsky District local government. Prokopenko says Yashin and the other political prisoners recently swapped to the West currently have greater relevance inside Russia than their oppositionist colleagues who emigrated earlier.

Russia’s post-Putin politics

This week’s View of the Kremlin wraps up with a discussion about the opposition’s electoral odds in Russian politics after Vladimir Putin has kicked the bucket. Prokopenko plays the pessimist’s role, speculating that Putin’s surviving “entourage” will likely choose a “Politburo-style model” and not another dictator to replace the regime’s Dear Leader. She argues that there are fewer incentives today than in the late 1980s to consider democratic reforms, given what she describes as “a lack of positive democratic examples from the West or the East.” 

Pertsev counters that Russians won’t care about today’s emigre squabbles in a post-Putin electoral climate. Free and fair elections, he says, would “reset the past” and offer a “blank slate” to those who return to the country and run for office.

An update on the Nevzlin scandal since this podcast episode was recorded

On September 16, former Navalny Live YouTube channel producer Lyubov Sobol revealed on Twitter that she accepted money from Nevzlin sometime in 2022 for two months to cover the channel’s operating costs during a financing dispute with Volkov and the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Sobol complained that Volkov refused to pay “a single ruble” of anyone’s salary, insisting on the channel’s organizational independence. On Telegram, Volkov defended himself, arguing that it was Sobol who refused to relocate her team from Tallinn to Vilnius and merge the channel with the rest of the foundation. “It was more important to Lyuba to maintain her autonomy,” Volkov wrote. (The YouTube channel did merge with the foundation in 2023, when Sobol left the project.) 

Separately, Sobol says she accepted a $56,000 zero-interest personal loan from Nevzlin to help her with living expenses during a medical emergency in 2023.

Oh, one more thing: Sobol says she communicated with Nevzlin as recently as a month ago, when he allegedly ranted to her about Pevchikh (“a whore, I can prove it”), Volkov (“a double agent, I have evidence”), and other activists. When Sobol urged Christian forgiveness for Volkov, Nevzlin reportedly cited the Old Testament and spoke about “punishment” and “revenge” for Volkov.

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The news in brief

  • 🚫 Meta bans RT from its platforms following U.S. allegations that the outlet engaged in election interference and covert intelligence operations
  • 🩺👋 Doctors Without Borders ends work in Russia after Justice Ministry removes local affiliate from federal NGO registry
  • 🔑⛓️ Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardons 37 political prisoners in third wave of amnesties over the last month
  • 📈 Moscow apartment prices have reportedly increased 40 percent on average since the start of the year, and are still rising
  • 🚫 Apple Music hides song by anti-war band Pornofilmy from Russian users in response to order from federal censor
  • 🇬🇧🇺🇸 U.K. won’t authorize Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons against Russian targets without U.S. consent, sources tell The Times
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