Those who dared - II

We continue to acquaint our readers with those rare, brave individuals who challenged Putin's regime at home during elections in September 2022, when the regime began to receive the first sobering blows at the front in Ukraine. The first part of this mini-saga was published earlier. Initially, the article was written by Pavel Nikulin for Republic in September 2022.

What happened with the reckless candidates after the elections? How did they survive the ordeal? Who managed to stay, and who had to flee the country?
You will learn it in the following, the final part of this coverage, which is currently being written exclusively for REM.

by Pavel Nikulin for the Republic.

Part II

Alexei Navalny's supporters call the municipal elections "the main political campaign of the year," the results of which will show how many people actually support the course chosen by Vladimir Putin on 24 February. "We know that there are a lot of opponents of Putin in Moscow. So let's vote against those who started a war in someone else's country and are dragging their own down," Navalny's team said in a statement.

The principle of "Smart Voting"Read Term in glossary will differ from the previous 4 years for the first time. One of the key factors in selecting a candidate based on a referral will be their position on the war in Ukraine.

"When rallies are banned, and total censorship is imposed on social media, we see elections as an opportunity for a general protest. And this protest, safe for its participants, can become truly mass-scale. ... The Kremlin is trying to convince dissenters that there are very few of them. Let us prove that this is not true," the website says.

Recommendations will be disseminated through mobile apps, the website, and Smart Voting's Telegram bot.

The Smart Voting resources have been blocked for a year. Roskomnadzor added the Smart Voting website to the register of banned websites on the eve of the 8th Duma elections. The blocking is ensured by the so-called technical means for countering threats created by the law on the isolation of Runet. "Yandex removed links to the Smart Voting website from searches, Google and Apple removed the Navalny app from Google Play and App Store, and Telegram blocked the initiative's bot for the duration of the elections.

Can Smart Voting impact an election's outcome, given the remote e-voting factor, if even announcements of the upcoming elections prioritise online voting? That’s what is at stake. In one of his streams, Leonid Volkov explained that the effectiveness of the system would be judged by the results of in-person voting at polling stations, and the results of the would not be taken into account by Navalny's team.

"The authorities do use e-voting as a tool for falsification: we described this in detail in our report on the Distance E-Voting. Therefore, we assume in advance that the real results of the election may diverge greatly from those published by the Central Electoral Committee, reads the Smart Voting website. - But it is the real results that are important to us because they will show everyone - those who follow the elections, those who participate in them, and those who help to falsify them - how many people are, in fact, against Putin and the current government. We will monitor these results; we are betting on them."

For this reason, the "Society.Future" team obviously loses the support of the Navalny team. "[Roman] Yuneman is publicly “siegging” (from “Sieg Heil”, i.e. giving Nazi salute - REM), and part of his team's campaign platform supports the war. We can't support the war. They went cuckoo on the topic of war there," Volkov explained to supporters on the stream.

Ten years have passed since Katz's famous leaflet. He himself is in a forced exile in Israel and runs an opposition show on YouTube, and his cause, in a sense, is continued by VyDvizheniye. Zamyatin makes no secret of the fact that he largely copied his predecessor's tactics. Although he has to act in a completely different context: "They put Navalny away, came after Yashin," and they wanted to see fewer candidates after 24 February. Moreover, many incumbent deputies have left the country, together with those who could have participated in elections for the first time. Those who decided to run in the elections rather agree with a 10-year-old idea that the election does not make sense here and now.

"I'm a proponent of the gradual phasing out of the state. I hope that the society of the future will not have, for example, the legislative assembly and the federal assembly. Still, the municipal elections will remain because they are related to the people," explains Nikita Arkin, a member of the Left Socialist Action and a candidate of Yabloko.

Arkin is 39 years old and meets the Republic reporter after working hours at a coffee shop near the Maryina Roshcha metro station. He works nearby in the Booksellers publishing house, specialising in Judaica.

The kippah organically complements the intelligent appearance of the candidate for the Basmanny district.

Arkin began his political career by participating in rallies in defence of the old NTV channel, then "started hanging out with animal rights activists and anarchists".

Later, in 2007, together with his comrades, he founded the Left Socialist Action, or LevSD, an organisation committed to the principles of democratic socialism and "expressing the will of the working class". The members of the Left Socialist Action are social democrats, Marxists, libertarian socialists, and communists.

Arkin had almost no chance to escape politics: in his family, which he calls "semi-dissident," almost all members were persecuted for their views: his great-uncle got tuberculosis in a tsarist prison, where he was jailed for his social-democratic views; his great-uncle was tried for organising the Bakunin circle (a circle of supporters of the Russian revolutionary anarchist Michail Bakunin - REM); his great-uncle was repressed for his connections with the Georgian Mensheviks (political rivals of Bolsheviks and, consequently, enemies of the latters’ regime - REM).

"Municipal elections are the only elections we have left. We have no other elections. All other types of elections have been annihilated. There was a hope that this would not be the case. There was a feeling that one more step and the opposition would appear in the State Duma. But it did not happen," says the politician.

He explains that for the people who live in the city, it is important to improve their neighbourhood. Because big politics is "somewhere far away." Throughout his campaign, he talked to a hundred people and formulated the top 3 challenges of the Basmanny District residents: access to healthcare, overhaul repairs of residential buildings, and landscaping.

"And, unfortunately, that worries people a lot more than the fact that our troops are in Ukraine, - Arkin sighs and emotionally pats the table. - On the other hand, you can make a [deputy's] request about whether to start a house overhaul, which might work. And, if you make a request as to whether we should withdraw military units from the territory of Ukraine, it's unlikely to have any consequences. It won't have consequences for the troops, but for you, it probably will, almost certainly."

He sips hot chocolate and smiles. As he jokes about possible reprisals and laments having to censor himself ("I'm sick of the rhetoric I have to choose"), Rockwell's 1984 hit plays "I always feel like somebody's watchin' me And I have no privacy" in the café where he meets the Republic.

A few days after the interview, on 25 August, when the court fined Maria Volokh, Arkin was detained by the police. He would be charged with designing a flyer with the logo of the Navalny's headquarters and arrested for five days.

"The evidence underlying the charge is falsified. They made the leaflet in order to disqualify Arkin from the election, like 10 other Yabloko candidates prosecuted under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code”, - the party’s website posts the document on the violation of the candidate's rights.

"People really care more about broken roads and cut down trees than about the ruined Mariupol and Popasnaya", - Zamyatin agrees and attributes this to the depoliticisation of society.

"There are people who know nothing about Prigozhin, the Ozero cooperative society, or Putin's dealings. They are not in our opposition bubble," - Zamyatin explains in a teaching manner, not noticing that the interview is beginning to look more and more like a lecture. Depoliticization doesn't mean that a part of society likes Putin very much, he reasoned, rather, they just don't understand anything about politics, but there is a chance to re-politicise them.

"You can't start a conversation with people by telling them about Putin's palace, Prigozhin and the Wagner PMC ( Private Military Company - REM), because it scares people away. It all sounds so black, incomprehensible, like conspiracy theories, plus they think that the Western hirelings are telling them all this," says Zamyatin and offers another way out. – “Here I am, a municipal deputy. I walk into a monstrously neglected nine-story building, which is about to be renovated. As a deputy, I have the right not to communicate with these people and just check the repairs, but I don't do that. I gather a meeting. I make these people face each other. To discuss this topic they are willing to meet with me and each other to discuss this topic. In a building with a depoliticised, atomised society, where neighbours have never known each other, where everyone hates each other and doesn't say "hello" in the elevator, thanks to the renovation and the fact that I try to teach them to communicate, an online chat appears. By the moment when repairs are over, their appetites have grown. At some point during the State Duma elections, an elderly woman from such a house began calling me. And we're talking like in the joke about Grudinin (the runner-up in the Presidential Elections of 2018 - REM): ‘We have not participated in the elections before, but this time we'll definitely do. Whom should we vote for?’ This is our way of re-politicising the society."

Being asked why he personally needs all of this, Zamyatin cannot give a simple answer and resorts to quoting Aristotle, discussing the "virtuous" and "good" life.

- A good life is a life in which you live well. Well-fed, safe, with lots of relatives, and loved ones, you have a good time, you have good health, all these are important things. But the difference between a good life and a virtuous life is that you have to be socially and politically active. You have to feel as part of society. So, in a virtuous life, there are risks of deprivation appear. It ceases to be “good”.

- For me, the election is an organisational experience. It's interesting to me. It's an opportunity for people to try their hand at public politics. It's very different from communicating on Twitter," Taratorin says. – "Let's introduce politicised young people. They have a certain idea of how things work, of what Russia is like, of how people think. But this idea is formed by the mass media. No one has many contacts with ordinary people. So elections are a unique opportunity to get an incredible cross-section of society. You learn what people think, why they make these or those decisions, and why they take these or those positions. For a public politician, this kind of training is impossible to get in any other way."

Nikita Taratorin is 27 years old. He is a sturdy and witty man, wearing an anime character t-shirt. Ten years ago, he had no idea that he would be sitting in an office on Simferopolsky Boulevard surrounded by tough guys and laughing girls with coloured hair trying to fit the maximum number of the "Society.Future" nominees into the Procrustean bed of election committees. He went to the State Academia University of Humanitarian Sciences, from which he graduated with honours as a political scientist, managed to avoid military service after completing his master's degree, and found himself joining the Yabloko party during Yavlinsky's presidential campaign. He collected voter signatures in Tambov, Belgorod, and Krasnoyarsk during the election.

"Krasnoyarsk is my personal Vietnam war. Four thousand signatures, three weeks, a red-hot Siberian city. Next to the office, there is garbage, smell, and rats. You can see seven rats running through the window in a minute," says Taratorin, who has grown fond of travelling around Russia since the election and has travelled to 42 federal subjects.

Then he met Roman Yuneman, a new-generation nationalist. The latter had a conflict with Alexei Navalny during the Moscow City Duma elections over "Smart Voting" (at the time, Navalny's team supported another candidate in Yuneman’s district). In 2019, Taratorin led Yuneman's "field", then left Yavlinsky's party for the "Society.Future".

"Society.Future" has existed since January 2020. It is a nationalist or national-democratic movement that considers Crimea to be part of Russia.

The organisation's strategic goal is to "create an image of the future of Russia and to make it come true." The tactical objective is to win elections. In the electoral leaflets of the "Society.Future" candidates, topics of landscaping and preserving the Bittsevo forest are intertwined with the struggle against illegal hostels for foreign workers.

While VyDvizhenie and Taratorin's former Yabloko comrades-in-arms have taken a position against SWO (Special Military Operation is the official term for the war - REM), Society.Future supports the war in Ukraine.

In 2022, Yuneman welcomed the recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR, respectively - REM). The politician later admitted he was wrong.

"Recognizing the DPR and LPR was not a step toward de-escalation. I consider the decision to launch a full-scale offensive a mistake that will be costly, and that could lead to a real humanitarian disaster. I also believe that only a lost war is worse than a war. One cannot wish for a defeat for one's country, even if the country is wrong. God grant that everything ends as quickly as possible and with as few casualties as possible," he wrote on social media. After a while, the word "war" in his Telegram channel changed to "special operation." (as required by the law under threat of heavy prosecution - REM).

Yuneman was twice included in the list of Russian nationalists for his ambivalent position as both a supporter of the war and a non-supporter. Screenshots of this list are hanging on the wall in his office. Beneath the conflicting quotes is a colour and black-and-white photo of a kitten from the "This is me, and this is also me" meme.

"Russia must stand firm for its interests in the international arena. But achieving its goals today should not be by using military means primarily but by using the tools of diplomatic, economic and cultural policies - applying "soft power" and creating an attractive image of a strong, free, rich and progressive country," reads the doctrine of the nationalists, with which all Society.Future candidates in municipal elections should agree.

Unlike VyDvizhenie, Society.Future nominates its candidates on a team basis. This means that Yuneman's people guide the candidates and organise their campaigns. They nominated 60 and registered 40. "The effectiveness is 85%," Taratorin estimated. – "We went in thinking that everyone would be "hacked to death" (banned from the electoral race - REM). Participating in elections in Russia now is a leap of faith. We began our work with the clear awareness that there was a very high probability that it would all come to an end quite soon. Instead of that, we have to work. I admitted the possibility that no one was going to be registered, and I would have leisure to travel around Russia. Go to the sea. And I work 16 hours a day."

- Can I work with leftists? It is more likely that I cannot. Maybe someday, not right now. Libertarians? There are a lot of sympathetic ones... Overall, I know that with my experience, I could work with the authorities. But I don't want to. I'm actually an Orthodox Christian. What is the point of this money if we are mortal? - says Taratorin.

The anti-war agenda of almost all opposition figures is an attempt to ideologically mobilise their supporters, says Alexei Makarkin, first vice president of the Political Techniques Center. However, he reiterates that it can be difficult for voters without additional cues: "People who vote may not know the views of their candidate, they may not know his position on the 'special military operation', people do not read candidate programs.

In the last elections, this problem was solved by the United Democrats project founded by politicians Dmitri Gudkov and Maxim Katz. This service simplified the nomination process for young politicians and helped people understand for whom to vote.

"Now, there's a chance that the opposition will have competing lists," Makarkin says.

"The 'special military operation' doesn't affect voters in any way. They are simply trying not to talk about what is happening in Ukraine, political technologist Petr Miloserdov disagrees. "This does not mean that they do not care about the special operation at all. People care about what the hell is going on and when it will end, but they are not ready to discuss, they are not ready to express their position, they are not ready to make some kind of position for voting out of it either," he says.

According to Miloserdov, voters care more about the opposition of the deputy to the authorities, not her/his position on the 'special military operation'.

"Councillors who are not associated with the authorities are a safeguard against all kinds of madness and nonsense, such as total renovation. There were precedents when deputies were so active on this issue that Mayor Sobyanin rejected the idea of turning their neighbourhood into a stone canyon. That's point one," the political strategist enumerates. "Point two: deputies have the power to supervise the renovation. This seems like bullshit, but it is not. Every month, a resident of Moscow deducts a penny from his paycheck to the Capital Repair Fund. Imagine that 20 years you have been saving money, and then the scrapers came, stole some money, and spent the rest on some bullshit. To prevent this from happening, there must be a committee of municipal deputies. And there are plenty of precedents when a deputy saved money. For a particular building, for a particular staircase. Those are good stories. In order to save money, you need a[n independent] municipal deputy."

Miloserdov does not assess the chances of the opposition candidates to win. The election outcome will depend on two things: how well the candidates can mobilise their electorate and how extensive the electoral fraud will be.

Makarkin predicts: “Distance E-Voting can greatly increase voter turnout in favour of the government because the main electorate that the government can mobilise are state employees”.

“Imagine a government employee. He's sitting in his dacha, getting ready to go to the polls, and his wife says: 'Let's spend a couple more hours here. These people are apolitical. Their reasoning is simple - winter will soon be here, and right now, they can get some fresh air in the country, - says the political analyst. - For them, the optimal solution is to vote online on Friday and then go to their summer cottage.”

However, no more than 12% of the registered voters will come to vote, Miloserdov predicts. "That's the people who will actually e-vote because they're sick or gone somewhere, plus those people who will come to the polls. That's what I consider a fair turnout. If it's 18% there, I'll understand that it's tampering. It could be higher in some cases. But in general, it will be an electronic ballot-box stuffing for United Russia or My Neighborhood.

Once the turnout is low, candidates can be elected because they need relatively few votes. Makarkin explains: "Someone who comes in second, third, or sometimes even fifth, may get to the council”.

The follow-up to the story: The DEV looks after its own