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Too much can be blamed on the year 2020, but in any case it has delivered an unusually miserable Christmas for all of us with a special interest in the overlap between underwear and foreign policy scandal. This year, the Christmas stocking contains the blue underwear of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, through which he was seriously poisoned in August.
Blue underpants have even become a political symbol and the Russian police have called them one “Visual propaganda tools”. He has since been singled out by protesters in protest of the alleged assassination attempt, in which Navalny has singled out the FSB as guilty.
The goal: keep it away
Now comes the news that Russia is launching new criminal investigations against Navalny. In addition, the Russian prison authority demands that Navalny return from Germany, where he has been treated since the poisoning. This is because, according to the authority, it violates the rules of a suspended prison sentence of 2014, a sentence that Navalny dismissed as politically motivated.
If Navalny doesn’t come back, he risks spending time behind bars. Therefore, one might be led to believe that the Russian authorities would prefer that the country’s most famous government critics return home.
Perhaps the serious threat of prison in a country where the judicial system knows what the government wants. But in reality, it is quite the opposite: the Kremlin wants more than anything to get rid of him and these new threats are rather aimed at keeping him away.
Unconvincing discretion
Not everyone in Russia supports Navalny, but he is nevertheless a nail in the coffin of power. As a politician, but perhaps even more so as an examiner for widespread corruption. And it has accumulated a considerable number of enemies, even outside the red walls of the Kremlin.
Kremlin friends like to describe Navalny as an insignificant guy who only cares about foreign media. On the other hand, in the next breath, the same people are happy to point out that Navalny is a dangerous threat to the political stability of Russia.
Similarly, at his recent annual press conference, Vladimir Putin dismissed questions about the poisoning that Navalny is not important enough to be assassinated by the government. At the same time, as usual, he didn’t even want to mention Navalny’s name, as if he had given Navalny more power. Instead, Putin described him only as “the Berlin hospital patient.”
Dangerous chicken breed
What happens now? To a large extent, of course, this is what Navalny is doing now, but even a verbal agreement should probably not be expected. Putin never participates in debates and seems particularly fearful of giving Navalny space.
The Russian authorities probably want to make it harder for Navalny, but they are groping for something to bite. Above all, they want Navalny to go up in smoke or accept exile in silence. Of course it can be, but there is nothing that seems to want to make fun of them until now.
Instead, the situation is moving towards another confrontation. The fact that Navalny’s fate has become an international and not only national affair may give him some protection, but he also has many enemies who long ago ditched the silk gloves.
Whatever happens, one thing is clear: The Kremlin wants to show confidence in itself, but its actions exude desperation.
