Media references to Navalny increase fivefold since start of 2017
References to the policies of oppositionist leader Alexei Navalny were five times more frequent in April 2017 than they were in December 2016, reported newspaper Vedomosti on Wednesday, citing data from Moscow-based media monitoring company Medialogia.
Navalny’s name appeared a mere 6,908 times in the press in December 2016, the month when he announced his intention to run for president, compared to 26,115 times in April 2017.
Navalny took sixth place in terms of media references in March-April 2017, losing to Russian president Vladimir Putin, United States president Donald Trump, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. According to Vedomosti, Navalny is ahead of Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in the ranking for references in the media during March-April 2017.
Navalny’s campaign headquarters has a center that monitors and summaries news containing references and citations on a daily makes. Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov said: “I am pleased with these figures. When we started, we set a goal of increasing awareness, including of the campaign plan. This shows that it is working.”
On March 2, Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation into the houses, yachts, and property used by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. According to the Foundation’s report, Medvedev manages this property through non-profit organizations and charities, which receive donations, for example, from Russian billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Leonid Mikhelson. The foundation estimated the total funds listed in the organizations at 70 billion rubles (approximately $1.2 billion).
On March 26, Anti-corruption protests swept nearly one hundred cities across Russia, following the publication of Navalny’s report into Medvedev’s property. Most of the rallies were not pre-approved by city authorities. According to various sources, the protests attracted anywhere from 8,000 to 20,000 people. More than a thousand protesters were detained in Moscow alone.
On April 27, an attacker threw a solution of brilliant green dye – a popular anti-septic in post-Soviet countries – into Navalny’s face as the oppositionist leader was leaving the Anti-Corruption Foundation headquarters. Previously, a similar attack had been orchestrated against the oppositionist leader in the town of Barnaul, but Navalny claims to have been able to “see normally” within 10 minutes of having the solution thrown at him. This time round, doctors suspect that the “brilliant green dye had been mixed with something else,” said Navalny in light of the severity of the burn. His latest attacker was since identified as an activist from the “patriotic” SERB movement Aleksandr Petrunko. Alexei Kulakov, another activist from this organization, had filmed the attack on video.