With very public raids across Russia on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to show opposition protesters who is boss.
Putin is trying to give himself cover to bring trumped up corruption charges against democracy activist, Alexei Navalny. An anti-corruption investigation against Navalny is underway, with authorities accusing him of just that which he has repeatedly proved they engage in: systematic corruption. These raids will almost certainly find some evidence against Navalny. But it will almost certainly be false.
Because this effort to tar Navalny and purge his voice is standard fare Putin-legalism. The same strategy, for example, that was recently used against anti-corruption investigative journalist Ivan Golunov. But unlike with Golunov, whom Putin didn’t really care about, the Russian leader wants Navalny silenced. Navalny is simply too courageous, too relentless, and too amusing to buy off or intimidate. Putin knows that, short of imprisoning Navalny, the only options remaining are to throw him out a window or shoot him dead on the street.
Overt or concealed as an accident, execution would be Putin’s preference. It would rid him of a problematic citizen in a way that simultaneously warned others to stick close to Putin’s fiction.
But Navalny is now famous in the West. Were he to die, even if it appeared to be accidental or outside of Putin’s orders, new international sanctions on Moscow would likely follow. And that’s something Putin can ill-afford.
That takes us back to these raids and the investigation against Navalny. While Putin is reluctant to get rid of Navalny entirely, he’s gambling that he can silence the activist by sequestrating him prison. He’s hoping that this calibrated step will reduce Navalny’s influence while avoiding the imposition of new sanctions.
The United States and European Union, which love talking about their commitment to human rights, should thus educate Putin to his error. They should make clear that Navalny’s imprisonment will mean the same as his premature demise: immediate and significant new sanctions on Russia.
