Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 22 – For the 43rd
straight day and the seventh straight Saturday, thousands of people came into
the streets of Khabarovsk not only to reiterate their demands that their
elected governor be restored to office and Putin be ejected from his but also
to express their solidarity with opposition leader Aleksey Navalny who remains
in a coma.
Calls for the restoration of Furgal
remain the most widespread, Elena Beloglazova of SibReal reports, but ever more
Khabarovsk protesters are demanding that Putin leave office or even be brought
to trial. Some, in reference to the poisoning of Navalny via tea, suggested
that “Putin, Drink the Tea!” (sibreal.org/a/30797014.html).
Aleksey Kondratyev, a protest participant,
says that everyone knows Navalny was poisoned on orders from above and that
this happened because his were among the few media outlets that covered what
has been going on in Khabarovsk. “We are
required to support him. I hope that Aleksey will make it through this and
live.”
A second protester, Vsevolod
Mashkov, says that “Putin removes strong leaders … Navalny and Furgal are
strong politicians. In the Far East, Furgal’s rating is higher than Putin’s.” And Mashkov’s wife adds “who could have
poisoned Navalny if not Putin?” noting that the arrest of Furgal and the poisoning
of Navalny are “links in one chain.”
After Putin had his ability to
remain president sanctioned by constitutional amendments, the Kremlin leader
has become to put in place “real fascism,” Tatyana Mashkova continues. The Kremlin leader wants to send a message
that “we are all his slaves.” And he
doesn’t care what we or the world thinks.
If the people of Khabarovsk have
anything to say about it, Putin may soon have cause to regret that attitude. By
showing his contempt for them, he has made them contemptuous of him – and their
contempt may mark the beginning of the end of his rule. At the very least, it
removes yet another lever the Kremlin ruler has been able to pull in the past.
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