With last week’s mass protests, Russia “has awakened from a deep sleep”, said Christian Esch in Der Spiegel (Hamburg).
Vladimir Putin crushed dissent after his re-election five years ago, and since then there’s been little in the way of domestic politics, just the endless telling of a “patriotic tale” of Russia’s battle against the hostile West. So it was a huge surprise when tens of thousands took to the streets last week in anti-corruption protests. The spur to public anger was a 50-minute video report, released by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, revealing the absurdly luxurious lifestyle of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev; notably drone footage of the palatial estates that he’s said to have acquired through backhanders. The film has been watched more than 16 million times on YouTube.
This story is from the April 8, 2017 edition of The Week UK.
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This story is from the April 8, 2017 edition of The Week UK.
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