Snow Revolution, Navalny, Wagner: How Russia Under Putin Crushed All Dissent — A Timeline

Wagner Group chief is latest in long line of dissenting characters in Putin’s Russia, who had to roll up their banners of rebellion, after wilting under the red eye of an all-powerful state machinery

During his previous term as Russian president, from 2000 to 2008, and subsequently from 2012 to the present day, rarely has Vladimir Putin’s iron grip over the country, which was born out of a revolution, been challenged. The ones who dared stand up to the former KGB officer, calling out the alleged electoral frauds that gave him an extended reign at the helm and the brutal crackdown on dissent on his watch, or threatening to emerge as political adversaries challenging his hold of the country, were put behind bars.

And, in the latest instance of a rebellion, which threatened to take the fight to Putin and his followers in the Russian establishment but withered away after ruffling feathers in the country’s power corridors, Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had to beat a quiet retreat.

The man, who, along with a band of fellow Russian mercenaries, claimed to have taken hold of some military facilities in two cities, cut a deal with Putin to raise the white flag and exile in neighbouring Belarus.

The Wagner Group chief is only the latest in a long line of dissenting characters in Putin’s Russia, who had to roll up their banners of rebellion or mutiny, after wilting under the red eye of an all-powerful state machinery.

Alexei Navalny

While the Russian opposition has never packed enough punch to take down Putin, or so much as weaken his grip on the Russian establishment, one leader who came the closest to doing so was Alexei Navalny.

According to a Reuters report, the former lawyer rose to being a prominent dissident voice in a country, where the power elite rules the roost, with his blogs that were scathingly critical of the Russian regime and exposed what he claimed was large-scale corruption by the establishment.

Strengthening his hold as a prominent anti-establishment voice, he labelled Russia’s ruling elite as “crooks and thieves”, as reported by Reuters, and led nationalist protests on the streets in the 2000s.

Further, according to the report, Navalny used the cyber platform and even drones to shed light on the elitism that allegedly pervades the country and the king-size lives of the members of Russia’s ruling establishment.

He was among the opposition leaders to be arrested amid protests against alleged fraud during the 2011 elections, which further entrenched Putin’s position as the modern-day Russian Tsar.

His standing as an opposition voice was further enhanced in 2021 after Navalny returned to his homeland from Germany where he received treatment for a suspected attempt to poison him with a nerve agent.

In March 2022, a Russian court held the bitter Kremlin critic guilty of large-scale fraud and contempt and sentenced him to 9 years in a maximum-security penal colony. It was in addition to the 2.5-year sentence that he was serving east of Moscow for alleged parole violations.

Ilya Yashin

A top opposition leader in Putin’s Russia, Yashin was sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison after criticising the Russian military offensive against Ukraine.

According to a report in The Guardian, the dissident leader was found guilty under a law Russia introduced to launch the Ukraine offensive.

In May of 2022, he had allegedly shared a series of posts on social media claiming mistreatment and torture of Ukrainians by the Russian armed forces. 

As quoted in the Guardian report, the Meshchansky district court of Moscow said in its verdict: “Expressing hatred of the political system of the Russian Federation and realising that he is a public person…Yashin created a real threat to the formation of a negative attitude towards the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

Despite facing crackdown and arrest over his posts alleging torture by the Russian forces on Ukrainians, Yashin decided not to leave Russia.

The Guardian quoted him as saying that the “the anti-war voices sound louder and more convincing if the person remains in Russia”.

“It is better to spend 10 years behind bars as an honest man than quietly burn in shame over the blood spilled by your government,” he added.

Wagner Group rebellion

Earlier this month, Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a paramilitary force called Wagner Group, raised the banner of revolt against President Putin and the country’s ruling elite.

It claimed to have captured two Russian cities and the military headquarters overseeing the country’s offensive against Ukraine.

It was widely reported how Prigozhin and his men, who claimed to have been received warmly by the people as they marched to Moscow, was within 200 km of the capital city when the Kremlin cut a deal with him.

As part of the deal that the Kremlin brokered with the mercenary and private military operator, Prigozhin was to dial down his rhetoric against Putin and go into exile in Belarus.

Born in St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, Prigozhin also goes by the name ‘Putin’s chef’ as his private military company runs a chain of restaurants where members of Russia’s ruling elite indulge their gastronomic urges.

Prigozhin rose to being the top military operator in the world due to his alleged closeness to the Russian president and his company was involved in the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, according to reports.

After raising the spectre of a mutiny, the Wagner Group boss later issued a statement claiming that his revolt was not so much against Putin as it was against members of Russia’s ruling elite.

Snow Revolution (2011-2013)

A wave of civilian protests erupted in Russia in 2011 over claims and reports of massive electoral fraud in the 2011 elections.

Reports quoted the Central Election Commission of Russia as saying that a mere 11.5 per cent official claims of fraud were found to be true.

What initially started out as small-scale demonstration against alleged malfeasance in the country’s electoral process, fanned into massive protests, the biggest since the 1990s, according to a report.

The protests were focussed on the ruling United Russia, led by Putin.

The demonstrators, who even engaged in pitched battles with the law enforcers, put forward some key demands — freedom to political prisoners, rendering elections results as void, the resignation of Vladimir Churov, the then head of the election commission, and an official investigation into electoral fraud, among others, the report said.

However, as has been the fate of most protests and dissent in Russia, the Snow Revolution, too, lost steam in the face of an unsparing crackdown.

Pussy Riot

The rabble-rousing punk rock band vented their misgivings against Putin and his rule through their music.

Although their punk rock was more mindless noise and shrieking than music, as some media reports put it, the Pussy Riot became a rage with the people, especially the country’s youth, with the song ‘Punk Prayer’, which they performed at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

The song was set to bold lyrics, with Putin said to have been described as a ‘rotten dictator’.

A line in the song said: “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Put Putin Away”.

Predictably, however, three prominent faces of the feminist Russian punk rock band — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yaketerina Samutsevich — were thrown into a padded cell after being charged with ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’.

The US State Department did voice concern over the threat to free speech and dissent in Russia in the wake of the arrests, but the Kremlin couldn’t care less.