Vladimir Putin is guaranteed to be reelected next week. But, just like the botched plan to capture Ukraine, the Kremlin’s attempt to annihilate criticism at home has turned out to be less a blitz operation than a game of whack-a-mole.
What should have been scorched earth, is instead fertile ground for neophytes to take up the gauntlet of opposition. Most notably, in a militarized culture built on patriarchy, the new opposition is increasingly made up of women.
Power vacuum
After Navalny’s sudden death last month in a penal colony north of the Arctic circle, Russia’s remaining veteran opposition politicians are almost all in exile, jail or facing charges.
Realizing that, Yekaterina Duntsova, a single mother of three and former journalist put herself forward last November to run against Putin on an anti-war ticket. “Someone had to,” she told POLITICO in a phone conversation from Moscow.
Overnight, she became a political star.
Almost as swiftly, electoral authorities disqualified her. Boris Nadezhdin, another anti-war candidate — but one with close ties to Putin’s entourage — was allowed to proceed to the next stage in the election.
