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As dawn sweeps westwards across Russia and protesters and OMON get to do their thing, the q arises of just what constitutes ‘success’ for both #Navalny and the Kremlin. An early morning thread 1/
Obviously, one day of action will neither get Navalny free nor break his movement. Rather, it is about defining what kind of struggle this will be 2/
For Team Navalny, it is about the numbers coming out, the spread of places they come out, and at least as important, what kind of people come out. Can they use it to demonstrate a broadening of their support base? 3/
They don’t need to reach Bolotnaya numbers to claim success, certainly not for a 1st day of protests: tens of thousands in Moscow is enough, esp if – as seems the case – they can also point to protests all across the country 4/
As big a challenge as getting people on the streets today is managing expectations and having a strategy tomorrow onwards. A big march and some chants are fine, but what then? It has to be 100% clear this is just part of the start of something long-term 5/
If Navalny’s extraordinary brave act of returning is to mean something, it has to be used to further building a national movement + making ‘smart voting’ part of national conversation 6/
It’s also a chance to challenge but also build bridges to ‘systemic opposition’ and get them – or at least individual members, local orgs, etc – to decide if they are more ‘systemic’ or ‘opposition’ 7/
For the Kremlin, it depends how it has decided to play the day, which in turn will tell us much about how far we are witnessing an ‘authoritarian turn’ overall following the poisoning, which def went beyond past practice 8/
They can focus on managing the day: still enough arrests to signal the risks in participation, but essentially hope to ride out the protest moment. This is what they have largely done in the past. Or… 9/
They try seriously to suppress it, especially in Moscow: lots of arrests, violent takedowns, long sentences, OTT displays of force. A high-impact. high-risk approach. It will galvanise more dissent at home, more protest/sanctions abroad 10/
I am not convinced Kremlin has deftness of touch and control to calibrate that kind of violence accurately without risking a kind of Bloody Sunday - + I suspect PrezAdmin feels the same. Violence will mean hawks like Zolotov listened to more than Vaino etc 11/
This would much wider consequences for everything from state/region relationships to whether the Duma elex will have to be totally rigged. I suspect this risk-averse Kremlin will hold back or maybe allow itself one day of rage then retreat 12/
On international dimension, lots of talk of sanctions, both based on #Navalny’s own list, as released by @vashurkov, and of others, but that in itself is not enough. 13/
I’d *also* like to see diplomats accompanying marchers in hope moderates state behaviour and esp media crews covering protests. If the state’s response is esp violent, then there absolutely have to be additional consequences targeted on the people concerned, top to bottom 14/
Here, ironically, response to #Belarus may give us some pointers. Punish law enforcement + security hierarchy; identify worst offenders on ground; track chain of command (who gave what orders?); provide concrete assistance to those arrested. 15/
After all, what happens today and as a result of today doesn't just set the tone and strategy for Team Navalny and for the Kremlin, but also for the West. A weak reaction to heavy-handedness today also undermines efforts to shield Navalny and empowers hawks. 16/
A desire to make progress on big issues such as arms control + fear of Kremlin’s standard policy of angry tit-for-tat cannot be allowed to hold Western response hostage. Or things like Navalny poisoning + wider repression will happen again and again… /end
