Protests in Russa

People attend a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia January 23, 2021. REUTERS/Yuri Belyat

Well, large protests in Belarus have disappeared but they are still doing a number of smaller protests. This weekend the Belarus police detained/arrested around 100 protestors. Meanwhile protests have exploded in Russia. On Saturday, they started in the far east in the Siberian cities of Vladivostok and Kharbarovsk and erupted across dozens of cities across Russia (90 cities according to one count). They culminated in large protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Russian government claimed 4,000 protestors in Moscow, but it looked like a lot more than that in the videos I have seen  One estimate was 15,000 gathered in and around Pushkin Square in the center of Moscow (picture of protestors in Pushkin Square is shown above). The police have detained/arrested over 3,300 according to one independent Russian source (OVD-Info). 

We have seen continued protests in Kharborovsk that have been going on since July  2020, but this is a nation-wide explosion. Not sure how to evaluate it or measure its impact. We have seen several governments overthrown in Eastern Europe: Euromaiden (Ukraine: 2013-2014),  the Orange Revolution (Ukraine: 2004-2005) and the Rose Revolution (Georgia: 2003). Is this serious enough to threaten Putin’s hold on power? I have no way of evaluating that at the moment. I did think that Lukashenko, President of Belarus, was close to being removed, and that may well be the case yet, especially if the protests in Belarus get rejuvenated.

By the way, the Aleksei Navalny video that is partly responsible stirring up these protests is here: Дворец для Путина. История самой большой взятки – YouTube

It is two hours, in Russian with English subtitles and I heard it is worth watching, is well researched and makes a fairly convincing case. It has 84.6 86.4 93.3 million views so far.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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