Russian truck drivers angry about a new road tax moved their protest into Moscow on Friday. Traffic around the city was snarled by both truckers and police, who had set up temporary roadblocks to interrogate drivers they suspected might be on their way to join the revolt.
The New York Times reports that police were using a variety of excuses to try to force drivers off of the roads, including declaring drivers “drunk,” temporarily suspending licenses, and finding supposed mechanical problems on trucks that made them unfit to drive.
The drivers are hoping that this highly visible protest will be enough to force the parliament to repeal the tax. The Duma had already lowered both the tax rate and the penalties for non-payment, but the drivers, claiming that the cost of compliance would threaten their livelihoods, say that they will be satisfied with nothing less than full repeal.
Previously, the Russian government had collected about half of its revenues from taxes on exported commodities, but with exports crippled by years of increasing sanctions and low oil prices, the government has been forced to turn to increasing domestic taxation to make up the shortfall.
Moscow is uniquely cursed in that traffic on the MKAD, one of Russia’s only modern superhighways, makes a ring around the entire city. Despite its ten lanes, the so-called ring road is frequently stopped by jams, which can ensnarl cars for hours and nearly encircle the city. With trucks and police both blocking traffic, the road was effectively a standstill.
The drivers are hoping that the stunt will draw attention to their demands. However, despite the size of the protest, their complaints have been getting little coverage from Russian media with none at all from state-run television news, the Russian people’s main source of information. The Russian government has been largely ignoring the protestors, perhaps hoping to ride out the storm.
When President Vladimir Putin addressed the Duma on Thursday, he failed to mention the protests at all. Last week, his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that while the president was informed “in general” of the protests “on the basis of mass media reports,” he was unaware of the drivers’ demands.
“I don’t know if there’s been any letter or via what channels it was to arrive,” Peskov said.
It’s an odd response, given that the protestors have been unequivocal in their demands for the repeal of the tax.
While the drivers wait for a response and residents of Moscow hope that the roads will begin to move soon, some are hopeful that the protest could be an early sign of popular discontent with the Putin government. Russian observers have noted that previous protests against Putin had focused on issues like freedom of speech and human rights abuses, drawing much of their support from the intelligentsia. However, the current demonstration on wheels is focused on a much more practical issue—taxes—and is formed from the same pool of middle and working class class Russians from which Putin had previously drawn much of his support.
