Battlegrounds

by H.R. McMaster

People were angry in part because Putin raised the retirement age even as more Russians became aware that he had become a billionaire many times over only by looting the country.37 By 2019, protests were a regular occurrence in Russian cities as Putin’s popularity dropped. In regional elections in September of that year, Alexei Navalny, an anticorruption activist and lawyer, developed what is known as a “smart-voting” strategy. Creating a list of candidates across the country who he believed could defeat those backed by Putin’s United Russia party, he urged opposition-minded citizens to vote for those on that list. The strategy resulted in victories for a record 160 candidates across the country38 and showed that, even as Putin controls the media and restricts the opposition, elections still matter in Russia.39 Exposing Putin’s personal finances and the finances of the Siloviki who surround him may further embolden a Russian opposition movement that has survived despite brutal Kremlin repression and absolute control of the media, parliament, courts, and security services. Support for opposition groups, anticorruption organizations, and surviving investigative journalists in Russia is an appropriate counter to Putin’s playbook and a way to communicate support for the Russian people while countering Kremlin aggression.