Navalny calls for a nationwide ‘demonstration against idiocy’

Opposition politician Alexey Navalny is calling for a “demonstration against idiocy,” urging Internet users to repost photos from the USSR's 1945 Victory Parade, where Soviet soldiers lined up with Nazi banners and standards pointed to the ground in defeat. A photograph exactly like this appears on an 11th-grade Russian history textbook. Navalny argues that this photo is now banned in Russia, which he says represents “state idiocy promoted from the very top.”

In January 2018, Arkhangelsk resident Mikhail Listov was fined 1,000 rubles (about $17) for publishing this photograph on his Vkontakte page, after a court convicted him of publicly displaying Nazi symbols. The verdict means that he could be added to the government's official list of terrorists and extremists.

On February 5, the human rights group “Agora” reported that Russian police have prosecuted 1,449 criminal cases in the past 10 years concerning online activity, and 98 of these cases have resulted in prison sentences.