RUSSIAN REBELSOusting Putin: Popular Russian Blogger Calls for Armed Resistance, Sabotage
More and more Russian opposition activists are calling for a more robust popular campaign to oust Putin, including armed resistance and acts of sabotage. These activists fear that if Putin is replaced by another member of the ruling elite, matters will not improve.
“Everyone is hoping for some kind of conspiracy at the top — that one of Vladimir Putin’s close associates or oligarchs will kill him,” says popular Russian blogger and longtime Kremlin critic Dmitry Chernyshev. “But it seems to me that will not be a solution,” he adds.
Instead, Chernyshev, a 55-year-old writer and lecturer, is calling on Russians to join a National Resistance movement he’s setting up and is encouraging wide-ranging civil disobedience going well beyond street protests. He says armed resistance and sabotage will be needed to overthrow the Russian leader.
That marks him out from other Kremlin critics and opposition figures as they struggle to map out a way forward to continue to challenge Putin.
This week a group of veteran Russian human rights and political activists agreed to set up an anti-war council and to focus their efforts on opposing the invasion of Ukraine. They are preparing an open letter calling on Russia to end its war on Ukraine, in which they will declare it “our common duty” to “stop the war [and] protect the lives, rights and freedoms of all people, both Ukrainians and Russians.”
The soon-to-be-published manifesto will be signed by a dozen opposition luminaries, including Lev Ponomaryov, Oleg Orlov and Svetlana Gannushkina. Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, who was sentenced to an additional nine years in prison last week, has also called on Russians to attend anti-war protests.
But speaking to VOA, Chernyshev, who fled to Israel after his family was threatened by authorities and is trying to establish from Tel Aviv a movement to oust Russia’s leader, says more is needed and his strategy is broader. He says it won’t help Russia, if there’s “just a transfer of power from one hand to another.”
Russia will be as badly off if Putin is replaced by someone like Viktor Zolotov, the head of Russia’s National Guard, or Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister, he says. “It seems to me that the security forces have committed so many crimes that they will not give up power by peaceful means,” he warns.
Opposition Exodus
Russia’s dissidents and rights activists say they are now living through the darkest period they have encountered since the end of communism. Tens of thousands of Russians have fled the country since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, fearing that if they didn’t do so they would end up in jail.
