As the videos I’m posting below show, the mood in Moscow has definitely soured since I last reported on the anti-Kremlin
demonstrations there in 2007-8. Back then, anti-Kremlin democracy
protests were still confined to a smaller sliver of the population,
although even at that time, as I wrote,
there were early signs that discontent was starting to take root among
Moscow’s student intelligentsia. That’s always a sign of danger to come
for Russian regimes.
Yesterday, former eXile columnist Edward Limonov was detained as he got out of his car to lead a protest against the fraud-riddled elections.
And Monday night Moscow time, the protests against election fraud swelled in size to as high as 10,000+ according
to some reports I’ve read, overwhelmingly young students and
post-Communist Russians in their 20′s and 30′s. Watching this video,
shot near the Kremlin, makes it clear that a tipping point has been
reached in Moscow: Discontent over living under oligarchical rule is
spilling into the open. It’s no longer enough to be “better off than
under Yeltsin”–Russia’s youth wants more democracy, more people power,
and more justice. The idea is spreading in Moscow, and this has got to
make Putin and the Kremlin nervous:
No comments:
Post a Comment