"They cannot at all without repression." How Putin and Lukashenko perceive protests

In Khabarovsk for nine days, mass shares have been going on in support of the arrested governor Sergei Furgal. On July 11 and 18, the most numerous manifestations were held in the city, according to some estimates, 35-50 thousand people participated in them.

Demonstrators demand to release a van out of arrest and conduct a trial of him in Khabarovsk. Also at rallies there are political slogans against the federal government. Similar protests are regularly held in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and other cities and villages of the Khabarovsk Territory. In addition, shares of solidarity with protesters were held in Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk.

A rally in support of Sergei Furgal in Vladivostok. July 18, 2020

Sergei Furgal was detained on the morning of July 9 in Khabarovsk and sent to Moscow, where the court arrested a policy for two months. He is accused of organizing murders of entrepreneurs 15 years ago. He denies all the accusations. Furgal, representing the LDPR, won the acting head of the region - a representative of United Russia in 2018 in 2018 in 2018. In 2019, United Russia lost elections to the Legislative Assembly of the Khabarovsk Territory. Furgal still remains the governor - there was no decision on his removal from his post and the appointment of the temporarily acting head of the region.

Many political observers compare what is happening in the Far East of Russia today with election protests in Belarus. The presidential elections in Belarus are scheduled for August 9. The CEC registered five people with candidates, refusing the registration of ex-head of Belgazprombank Viktor Babariko and the former head of the high technology park Valery Tskopkalo. Alexander Lukashenko, who has been led by the country since 1994, will be elected for the sixth time in a row. The current election campaign is accompanied by mass shares of the opponents of Lukashenko and the acceleration of their participants. From the beginning of the protests, over 700 people have been detained and arrested. The head of Belarus himself, commenting on the arrests of their opponents, said that the authorities managed to prevent the Maidan. He also accused foreign states of interfering in the elections, including Russia.

Political scientist Kirill Rogov in an interview with Radio Liberty discusses how the authorities will act in order to reduce the degree of protests in the Far East, and are these protests comparable to the shares of the opposition in Belarus:

Kirill Rogov

- Can we say that Khabarovsk took the Kremlin by surprise?

- I think the Kremlin suggested that there would be performances in support of the van. The authorities were preparing for some excesses, however, they did not take into account the scale. Already the second week has gone through these protests, they do not fall, and it is impressive. Furgal, indeed, is a popular governor, and therefore he spent so long.

- Will Putin use his repressive car against the population if people do not disperse and continue to go out into the streets?

- The repressive machine includes several different strategies and elements. First of all, it will be directed in the near future against activists and those who coordinate the process or try to coordinate. Because there are always some centers that urge to go here or here. Next - let's see. While I do not expect frontal power suppression, the authorities will hope that the ardor will pass and subside. And when the wave will decline a little, here they will try to press it and already apply repression.

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Autosak Moscow-Khabarovsk

- Is Putin ready for a compromise about the fate of the arrested governor? Or he cannot afford to give a slack and will stand hard in his position - the governor will be in prison?

Of course, the Kremlin will insist on its

- Of course, the Kremlin will insist on his own. Tactical links are possible, some steps that slightly facilitate the position of the van. But only in order to bring down the wave again and catch the moment when the willingness to protest decreased. Then you can strike activists, arrest people and use such tactics. After that, in the fate of Furgal, a deterioration will again come. Only tactical fraudulent maneuvers are possible.

- Is it possible to say that Zhirinovsky finally surrendered the van and the LDPR party completely renounced people and its governor?

- I have no doubt that Vladimir Volfovich will trade this situation. He is not going to climb into the barricades at all. His party is a commercial organization. But this is a situation that is completely not under his control. Both in the LDPR and the Communist Party are the same situation: the party leadership in Moscow is completely corrupt, it simply sells its opposition, receiving money, dividends, all sorts of statuses from the Kremlin for this. But at the regional level, regional branches are unhappy with this. And they are often in confrontation with the center, and more and more will act in accordance with their ideas, with the interests of the residents of the region. With moods in the region will become more than with the party leadership in Moscow.

- A few days ago, people went to Pushkinskaya Square to collect signatures against the ground of the president, or rather, against the adoption of a new constitution. About a hundred got into the autozaki. At the same time, in Khabarovsk tens of thousands go to the streets. Can Khabarovsk emotionally somehow provoke Moscow and St. Petersburg? And this will be a good example, how do people organize on the streets tens of thousands and do not touch them?

In order for people not to beat, there should be a lot of them

- In order for people not to touch, there should be many. And they should have a summons that touches and starts even more people. There should be a lot of people on the street, plus a lot in the society of sympathetic to them. And in this case, people will not touch. Unfortunately, these are very different summons. The first agenda is very important-against zeroing, but it did not receive any organized reinforcement at all. Well, and emotionally people have already lost this. So these are different stories. But the law is such that in order to not beat people, there should be a lot of them, and there should be a lot of sympathetic to them in society, who did not go out into the street. Then they will not be touched.

- If we draw parallels between protests in Minsk and Khabarovsk, Alexander Lukashenko will, in your opinion, will, in your opinion, get out of this political crisis without repression?

Without repressions that Putin, that Lukashenko could not at all

- Of course they will, but where without them?! Without repression that Putin, that Lukashenko can not at all. They already lack popularity and legitimacy in order for such tough, perennial, already boring to people regimes without repression. But in general, this situation is not too dangerous for Lukashenko. The difference in the situation in Belarus from what is happening in Khabarovsk is the breadth of support. In Khabarovsk, people of different views and ideas feel it as a clear injustice in Moscow, and they have been feeling for a long time. And against this Moscow injustice, people unite. In Belarus, it seems to me, those contingents who had previously been against Lukashenko act. And there is no such broad solidarity in different social groups on this issue. Therefore, their position is also unpleasant, and this is not a serious threat for Lukashenko.

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Protest has a female face

- Continuing the parallels between Moscow and Minsk, can we say that Lukashenko corrected the mistake when he made Viktor Babariko and Sergey Tikhanovsky to collect signatures? And suddenly, when he saw that these people could become the threat of his power, hastened to throw them in prison? He took an example from Putin, who does not closely allow Navalny, nor his party, nor his supporters and holds the opposition leader under the threat of imprisonment.

-It so happens that you allow someone more or less close. What is the matter? The fact that at some point some people become some symbols of discontent, like a fural. And dictators sometimes underestimate how this discontent can focus at some point. It can concentrate on something completely insignificant, such that it seemed completely bad for the authorities. So very often happens, and some political movements and political crises begin. And very often dictators make mistakes in such moments. But so far Lukashenko seems to have enough repressive opportunities to extinguish this wave with the help of repressions.

- Many observers believe that there will be no constitutional change of power in Russia. And what will happen?

- It is very incomprehensible what we mean by the constitutional change of power. The constitutional change of power lies in the fact that in 2024 Putin can no longer run for president of Russia. But we have amended the Constitution about what can. According to the method of its adoption - it was not adopted legitimate, not in accordance with the order that the constitution prescribes. Therefore, we can assume that we have no constitutions, that is, the previous constitution is not legitimate without amendment. In this sense, Putin should leave in 2024, but let's see how it will be in reality. Now it is very difficult to talk about what a constitutional or unconstitutional change in power in Russia is.

Demonstration in Khabarovsk. July 18, 2020

- Some observers believe that such regimes as in Russia do not fall as a result of swinging. This can happen completely unexpectedly, and we never know when. Once - and we wake up in another country in the morning.

- Indeed, there are two scenarios. The first is when there is an opposition at the national level, an opposition organization, some kind of structure that leads a strategic confrontation with the authorities, for example, the Polish "solidarity". She has a certain agenda, some resources, a certain circle of supporters that can expand. This is one script. The second scenario, when there is no such structure, everything is blocked, but the discontent, which accumulates invisible, at some point really shoots at some episode, which seemed not very dangerous to the authorities. And a very wide mobilization occurs, a political crisis arises, and the regime somehow changes and falls. It happens that and so.

- What is their difference?

- In the first case, when you have an organization that has long been conducting a strategic confrontation with the regime, it is much more predictable that you will have after falling the regime. Most likely, the values and political ideas that this organization put forward (they are usually democratic more or less) will at least follow the following government. When you do not have such an organization, and the political crisis occurs spontaneously and suddenly, without a leadership group, which puts forward and formulates some political ideals and requirements, then, most likely, your next regime will not be much better than the previous one. And there will still be a series of political crises in which different groups in the framework of the new regime will fight for power.