Throughout Russia, an action was held in support of Navalny's “Love is stronger than fear”. For the first time since the beginning of the protests of 2021, there have been without mass detentions

In dozens of cities of Russia and abroad, an action of the supporters of Alexei Navalny “Love is stronger than fear” was held. At 20:00 local time, they went out into the yards or on the streets, lit flashlights and posted photos on the social network with a tag #Lyubovisilneesterch. The tag quickly went to the top of the Russian twitter: about 20 thousand publications at the time of the release of this material. In Instagram, the number of posts with this tag at the time of publication was about 8 thousand. Unlike previous shares, in support of Navalny authorities, they did not actually interfere with the participants of the flash mob. According to the OVD-Info, 12 people were detained-in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Kazan.

On the eve of the flash mob in support of Navalny Roskomnadzor began to send the publications to delete materials about the action. Notifications, in particular, were received in the editorial office of Tomsk Edition TV-2, the Saratov edition “Free News” and “Open Media”. The Medusa editors also received a notification demanding to delete the article under the heading “Many ironic over lanterns as a new form of protest. But not the Russian government. She sees NATO's intrigues in this and even scares terrorist attacks. ” Medusa, under the threat of blocking, deleted the article. Later it became known that Roskomnadzor blocked the website of the Spectrum publication due to the mention of the action in support of Navalny, seeing in it “calls to participate in mass events conducted in violation of the established order”.

Even before the start of the flash mob, on the afternoon of February 14, “chains of solidarity” lined up in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow, up to 300 people went to the Arbat to demonstrate solidarity with Julia Navalny, women-worships and everyone who "spend their days in courts, police buses and special receivers." In St. Petersburg - here the action was called the “feminist chain of solidarity” - about 70 people lined up on the Voskresenskaya embankment of the Neva in the support of political prisoners. They read Anna Akhmatova’s poem “Requiem” and laid flowers to the monument to the victims of political repression. The detentions were not reported. The Moscow campaign was noticed by provocateurs.

A rally was held in the center of Kazan “against detentions and repression and changes in elected law”. He was agreed, but ended with detentions. Local authorities agreed on a share of up to 200 people (about 100 more people did not get to the action and stood behind the police fence). The rally itself took place without excesses, but after its completion, the police detained nine activists of the Socialist Alternative movement without explanation. They came to a rally with a banner "The New Tsar - the New 1917".

The authorities opposed the flash mob with the flashlights his own flash mob - with a veteran who, according to the prosecution , slandered Alexei Navalny. Participants in the action posted a photograph of the veteran of Ignat Artemenko with the signature “I/we Ignat” and tags #Protector and #Yamihilginatartemenko. Such posts, in particular, were actively published by pro -government politicians and activists, state publications, regional administrations and budgetary institutions. A source of Medusa in United Russia said that the proposal to place such posts came through the administration of the President of Russia.

Peter Lokhov