Posts Tagged ‘udaltsov’
The Putin Crackdown
Americans consumed by the Presidential election might spare a moment for Russia. Vladimir Putin timed his 2008 invasion of Georgia for the U.S. campaign season, and this year he’s doing the same with his latest political crackdown.
The Russian strongman has ruled since 2000, but his current domestic power play stands out for its ferocity. Last Friday Russian prosecutors charged a protest leader, Sergei Udaltsov, with plotting riots. If convicted by a puppet tribunal, Mr. Udaltsov could serve 10 years, long enough to keep him out of the way until well into a possible fourth Putin presidential term.
A week earlier Russian agents abducted Leonid Razvozzhayev in Ukraine and brought him back for trial alongside Mr. Udaltsov in Moscow. Mr. Razvozzhayev went to Ukraine to seek political asylum but he said he was grabbed off the street, tortured and forced to sign a confession.
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A Bitter Pill
In the hours after anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny was detained at a December 5 rally protesting falsified election results, he continued tweeting cheerful pictures snapped with his cell phone, showing a tight cadre of fellow protesters in the back of a police van and himself penning an official protest of his arrest. Yet in the same detention center from which Navalny will be released today, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov declared his latest hunger strike, which once again landed him in critical condition in a local hospital over the weekend.
This evening Navalny, along with Solidarnost Youth Coordinator Ilya Yashin and other protesters, will be released 15 days after they were arrested at the first mass rally against alleged election fraud on December 5. For the opposition, the return of one of their most recognizable and popular leaders Navalny will be a welcome boon as they prepare a 50,000-person demonstration on Sakharov Street in downtown Moscow on December 24.
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