“Russia will be free”: hundreds of Russian opponents in exile gathered in Berlin

“Russia without Putin“. This is the credo of the thousand supporters of the Russian opposition in exile who, this Sunday, took to the streets in Berlin. Led by Yulia Navalnaïa, the widow of Alexeï Navalny, all marched against the war in Ukraine and against the master of the Kremlin.

This protest march set off with cries of “No to war” or “Russia will be free“. The march in Berlin, a city which hosts crowds of exiles and Russian opponents, plans to end in front of the Russian embassy. Yulia Navalnaïa, Navalny’s widow, and the latter’s allies, lead the procession with the others initiators of the mobilization: Ilia Yashin, a former Moscow municipal deputy recently released from prison and Vladimir Kara-Mourza, a long-time critic of the Kremlin who survived prison and two poisoning attempts. 2000 the number of participants marching under a threatening sky.

A movement losing momentum

For the opposition, this gathering also aims to revive a movement that is losing momentum. Particularly since the death in February of Alexeï Navalny, who died in murky circumstances in prison. But also because, deprived of the means to act in Russia, the protest is forced to exist from abroad. Russian power has in fact methodically eradicated all dissent in recent years, throwing hundreds, even thousands, of people behind bars.

Illustrating these difficulties, Yulia Navalnaïa admitted during an interview with opposition television Dojd on Wednesday to not having “plan” to achieve the fall of Vladimir Putin and an end to the war. Several scandals within the Russian opposition have also weakened the movement and caused frustration among some of their activists. The cause is the aggression to the hammer of an ally of Navalny, the victim pointing the finger at the movement of the ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky Or even these accusations against the anti-corruption foundation of the late opponent which allegedly covered the machinations of crooked bankers in Russia. .

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“It is very important to show that we can work together and consolidate the various forces of the Russian anti-war movement“, insisted Vladimir Kara-Mourza, on the air of Dojd at the beginning of November. The Kremlin, for its part, has already dismissed this initiative as insignificant. Its spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, mocked the opponents on Wednesday “monstrously detached from their country“and of which”opinion doesn’t matter“.