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2021-09-29 13:11:42+00:00

FSB officers this morning arrested Ilya Sachkov, the chief executive of top Russian cybersecurity company Group IB, on suspicion of state treason. Group IB is one of Russia's most prominent cybersecurity firms. It focuses on investigating high-tech crimes and online fraud, with a global client base which includes banks, energy companies, telecom firms and Interpol.

IT companies are under growing risk of prosecution. Habr wrote (Rus) recently that many employees in the IT community have been interrogated by the Investigative Committee as a result of high-profile criminal cases. In April of this year, CNews quoted Maksut Shadayev, the Minister for Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, who said that almost all large Russian IT companies have employees who are currently involved in criminal cases. Andrei Soldatov warned in May that the FSB is getting serious about international cooperation in cyber crime investigations.

Three things to know about Sachkov:

1️⃣ He has been close to the authorities in general and to the secret services in particular - that's the russian reality. He was among the winners of the “Big Business - 2019” award, presented (Rus) to him in the Kremlin by Putin personally. Plus, all more or less important IT companies in Russia are involved in work with the security agencies in some capacity, especially the FSB.

2️⃣ Group IB has long had a competitive relationship with Kaspersky Lab.

3️⃣ There have been internal conflicts within the FSB between different units overseeing the cyber sphere. The current arrest might be related to the criminal case against Col. Sergei Mikhailov, an ex-officer at Russia’s Federal Security Service (the FSB’s Information Security Center), and Ruslan Stoyanov, a Kapersky Lab executive. An FSB officer who worked under Mikhailov, Maj. Dmitry Dokuchayev, was also detained and charged with treason. Some telegram channels have highlighted the links between Sachkov and Dokuchayev.

That’s to say that the current case has several grounds - (1) the FSB’s tendency to increase control over the IT-sector, taking all activities under tighter surveillance, especially contacts with foreigners; (2) infighting within the FSB between different units - in this case the Center for Information Protection and Special Communications of the FSB against the Information Security Center.

2021-09-29 11:50:18+00:00

Roskomnadzor, the Federal Communications watchdog, has threatened to block YouTube after Margarita Simonyan, RT's lead editor, made a complaint against the website. In a post on Telegram, Simonyan wrote that YouTube had blocked RT Deutsch’s channel permanently, without offering an explanation.

Is this the end of YouTube in Russia?

In reality, the situation is not so clear-cut. Simonyan is well-known as one of the conservative hawks who regularly supports radical steps being taken against “hostile” content. However, her loud denunciations and demands for radical measures are often not enough to guarantee a positive response. In 2017, RT urged the Russian government to put Meduza on the list of foreign agents. In April of this year, Simonyan demanded that action be taken against the publication after Latvia blocked the Russia Today’s Russian-language TV channel (“Russia Today in Russian”). In the end, Meduza was declared to be a foreign agent - but for completely different reasons. It had found itself in the cross-hairs of a more extensive campaign to clamp down on “anti-regime” media.

Like the independent media, all foreign IT companies are now under increasing pressure, and Simonyan is just one factor in that. She has repeatedly called for foreign networks to be shut down. However, this is Putin's decision to make. Today, at least according to his public statements, he is against going so far as to block foreign networks outright.

It is important to keep in mind that the authorities don't have a united strategy or a consensus on how to deal with foreign IT companies. Instead, a range of tactical measures is used to force such companies to the negotiating table, including testing internet control tools and tightening their operating conditions. However, as a Russian proverb says, 'water grinds stones'.

The general situation is becoming tenser and requests for Putin to "fight back" against "hostile" attempts to interfere are becoming more and more insistent. So far, all that we can say is that what is happening now will not necessarily lead to outright bans. But, we can almost say with confidence that concessions from the IT companies won't lead to a reduction of pressure either.

2021-09-27 19:07:53+00:00

R.Politik is pleased to present its latest bulletin, devoted almost entirely to Russia’s recent parliamentary election, its political consequences, and intrigues.

Bulletin No. 16 (80) 2021

In this EDITION:

◽️Federal and regional elections. Domestic policy overseers secured United Russia’s constitutional majority, prevented the Communists from breaking through the psychologically important 20-percent barrier, and made room for the recently created New People party. We focus on why the result - formally a success - has left a bitter taste for Putin and the United Russia leadership, and caused disquiet among elite groups. We also cover the regional elections and explain the latest trends there.

Another trending topic is the Communist party’s prospects. While regional activists have tended to favour political radicalisation, the more ‘constructive’ leadership prefers to bargain with the Kremlin. We explain their priorities and what’s at stake and ask whether the Communists could become a ‘real’ opposition party and if the Kremlin is going to crack down on troublemakers in the party ranks.

◽️Electronic voting in Moscow. While most observers have focused on what went wrong with the vote (and we also investigate this) and looked for proof of vote-rigging, infighting between elite factions behind closed doors is of no less importance here. We look at the competition between federal actors and Moscow Mayor’s office, and their electronic voting platforms. It appears Sobyanin lost this battle but has he lost the war?

◽️ IT companies and elections. One of the key features of the campaign was the blocking of the Smart Voting app, social media bots, and certain channels and websites: Apple, Google, Yandex, and Telegram all had to comply with the demands of the Russian authorities. We look at the situation in both geopolitical and domestic contexts and explain why we should not expect this hardline policy towards the IT giants to lose pace after the elections. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

◽️ Mishustin’s Cabinet veers left. One of the most important trends of this year - growing appetites in government to force the mining sectors to have broader shoulders. Mishustin, Belousov and Siluanov have started to use social welfare rhetoric to justify plans to make businesses share out their bumper profits “to solve our social problems”. This is the first-ever cabinet under Putin to lean towards ‘social fairness’, making it more influential and ambitious politically.

We also provide all the results for the State Duma elections (including region by region) and governor and legislature votes.

As always, our analysis is accompanied by social data, recent studies, as well as inside information from our sources. You’ll also find our recommended reading for extra insight into the reality of Russian politics.

2021-09-27 10:22:02+00:00

Andrey Klishas and Pavel Krasheninnikov have submitted a bill to the State Duma which would abolish the ban on governors being elected for more than two consecutive terms. In fact, this decision is an indicator of Putin's wish to extend Sobyanin's time in office past 2023, when the second (and last) term of his mayorship of Moscow will end, until 2028.

Keep in mind that the law on term limits was introduced in 2015. Then, it was decided that all terms beginning after 01.06.2012 would be considered as first terms. This means that even those re-elected, for example, in 2016, began serving their first terms.

Here is a list of governors elected for their second (and therefore last) term:

Sergey Aksenov (Crimea) - 2019-2024

Rustam Minnikhanov (Tatarstan) - 2020-2025

Veniamin Kondratiev (Krasnodar Territory) - 2020-2025

Vladimir Vladimirov (Stavropol Territory) - 2020-2025

Alexander Bogomaz (Oblast Bryansk) - 2020-2025

Andrei Bocharov (Oblast Volgograd) - 2019-2024

Oleg Kuvshinnikov (Oblast Vologda) - 2019-2024

Sergey Sitnikov (Oblast Kostroma) - 2020-2025

Alexander Drozdenko (Oblast Leningrad) - 2020-2025

Andrey Vorobiev (Oblast Moscow) - 2018-2023

Vasily Golubev (Oblast Rostov) - 2020-2025

Alexey Ostrovsky (Oblast Smolensk) - 2020-2025

Alexander Nikitin (Oblast Tambov) - 2020-2025

Sergei Sobyanin (Moscow) - 2018-2023

Natalya Komarova (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug) - 2020-2025

Roman Kopin (Chukotka) - 2018-2023

Governors who have been re-elected in 2021 for a second (and last) term:

Rashid Temrezov (Karachay-Cherkessia)

Ramzan Kadyrov (Chechnya)

Alexei Dyumin (Tula Oblast)

Igor Rudenya (Tver Region)

"Zeroing out" is very logical - if Putin can do it, why not the governors? The current decision has been made primarily to prevent Sobyanin becoming a "lame duck". But we should not forget that in Russia, no one is guaranteed anything, and Sobyanin's future at the end of his term in 2023 will be decided depending on circumstances then and what is most convenient for Putin. But right now, he has at least one new comfortable option.

2021-09-25 15:24:01+00:00

Breaking! Vladimir Putin has endorsed Vyacheslav Volodin for the post of Chairman of the State Duma

2021-09-25 14:21:24+00:00

Earlier today, the CPRF protested against the falsification of the elections. In Moscow, at Pushkin Square, roughly a thousand people turned out. The police did everything that they could to interfere with the meeting, including playing loud music, in order to prevent the speeches and encourage the gathering to disperse. There were instances of staged provocation too. Several prominent activists were arrested (Sergei Udaltsov has already received 10 days for organising an unauthorised meeting). The day before the protest, about 30 people were detained, including Elena Yanchuk, a deputy of the Moscow City Duma, and Vitaly Petrov, a former candidate for the State Duma. Many others were arrested when they left to go to the meeting or prevented from leaving home at all (such as Nikita Inozemtsev, a trusted aide to Mikhail Lobanov) – everything that we are so used to seeing happen with the activists of the non-systemic opposition.

The CPRF is clearly gravitating towards taking a more oppositionist line. However, there are at least three major obstacles to this.

📌 Firstly, the low level of popular responsiveness and the problem of motivation. Judging by the scale of the action on the evening of 20 September and today’s events, people are not ready to take to the streets, at least not in numbers large enough to become a source of real pressure that the authorities cannot ignore. Moreover, the protest agenda appears to be too local – the protests are specifically about the candidates who stood for election in Moscow districts, the controversial situation in Saratov and events in Saint Petersburg. Plus, the CPRF significantly increased its presence in the Duma at the elections, so to claim victimhood now has been made more difficult.

📌 Secondly, the leadership of the CPRF, the most ‘constructive’ wing, is clearly prepared to deal with the Presidential Administration. Meduza has an excellent article about how Zyuganov went to meet with Sergey Sobyanin, Sergey Kiriyenko and finally, Anton Vaino, to talk about the CPRF's demands. Right now, the distribution of appointments to the State Duma committees is in play. Too much radical rhetoric may sharply weaken the bargaining position of the party.

📌 Thirdly, today, the Kremlin is not speaking to the CPRF as it would to a partner, a responsible, constructive part of the opposition, but from a position of strength. The Presidential Administration is in no mood to haggle. Such a demonstration of force towards the protestors was also a warning – unauthorised protest actions will not be tolerated by the authorities. A head-on challenge with limited numbers of people taking part would be suicidal. Perhaps, for the first time, we can observe how the Kremlin has sharply raised the stakes in the ‘containment’ of the CPRF.

But in every story there is a "but". More protests may erupt if the authorities cross a border as they did in summer 2019 or with the Furgal story last year. The removal of Grudinin, in this sense, clearly raised the sympathy of the CPRF. The Kremlin, opting for bulldozer tactics, has created a situation where people can go out, but this time not for the CPRF, but rather - against lawlessness.

2021-09-25 11:18:58+00:00

Russia has now seen over 800 daily covid deaths for five days in a row.

In the past 24 hours, some 22,041 cases were reported - 3.1% more than the day before (21,379).

The head of Russia’s consumer watchdog, Anna Popova, says she does not yet see any grounds for introducing a new lockdown in the country.

On 23 September, Dmitry Peskov also said the president’s office had not yet discussed bringing in any new large-scale restrictions.

2021-09-25 11:07:40+00:00

US Under Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, will likely receive a visa in order to visit Moscow in the near future despite being on the Russian blacklist, according to an informed source speaking to Kommersant. Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin official overseeing affairs in the countries of the former USSR, is ready to receive the diplomat, who is acknowledged as an expert in the Post-Soviet Space. According to the source, in exchange for the removal of restrictions on Nuland, Moscow is counting on a reciprocal gesture of good faith and expects Washington to issue visas to some Russian diplomats who have been denied them. The Ukrainian situation will be a key topic at the meeting between Nuland and Kozak. The source, well acquainted with the course of negotiations over the Donbass, considers that the creation of a Kozak-Nuland channel will be useful: ‘There used to be three negotiating tracks on Ukraine. The contact group, where Kiev, Moscow, the OSCE, Donetsk and Lugansk were represented, the ‘Normandy format’ and the bilateral Russian-American format (a direct channel between Vladislav Surkov and Victoria Nuland – Kommersant). The bilateral track was useful.’

2021-09-21 15:33:29+00:00

With the final results officially announced, here's how the State Duma's 450 seats have been allocated:

324 - United Russia (previously 343)

57 - Communist Party (42)

27 - A Just Russia (23)

21 - Liberal Democrats (39)

13 - New People

1 - Civil Platform (1)

1 - Rodina (1)

1 - Party of Growth

5 - Self-nominated (1)

2021-09-21 14:13:21+00:00

RUMOUR. TASS reports that the United Russia fraction in the 8th session of the Duma may be headed by the acting Deputy Secretary of the party’s General Council, Vladimir Vasiliev.

The current leader of United Russia in the State Duma, Sergei Neverov, may be nominated by deputies for another important position. Vasiliev is a figure who has previously been considered as close to Volodin.

However, it is believed that he was proposed as head of Dagestan by Nikolai Patrushev, and over time, he has also developed good relations with those overseeing domestic policy. Therefore, as head of the Duma fraction, he will suit many interest groups.

2021-09-20 16:21:04+00:00

6️⃣ Protests are not on the cards. No one expected anything from these elections: everyone predicted violations, and they got them. The real opposition is in tatters. There’s no one else to trust, so give us some more money - that’s what people are being urged to do. And not everyone is prepared to vote for the Communists.

7️⃣ Smart Voting showed that “might goes before right”. Team Navalny is falling apart; and there is less and less unity within the protest movement.

2021-09-20 16:21:04+00:00

Right, let’s take stock. I’ll say right from the outset that we are not talking about elections here. What we’ve seen, up to and including 20 September, was the administering of a pre-planned result within permissible boundaries. The results turned out even better than many had expected.

1️⃣ United Russia took far more than the expected "maximum" (their "upper limit" was estimated at around 302 seats). As expected, the system’s knee-jerk reaction was to maximise the result - while the level of control over the situation was very high, resistance against going with the middle ground was low. The problem with this result is not only that the public won’t believe it (the kind of legitimacy the Kremlin absolutely doesn’t think it needs), but the elites won’t either. They set themselves up for a constitutional majority, but they didn’t get it.

2️⃣ The Communists (CPRF) really smashed it, and even though they officially received notably fewer votes than they apparently actually got, the party is now drifting quickly towards being a non-systemic opposition party. This poses an acute problem for the Kremlin - a party of conflict within the State Duma.

A lot will now depend on who turns out to be their speaker: that person will be one of the main mediators (in fact, Volodin was doing a pretty decent job at dealing with this). Those managing the situation within the Presidential Administration would very much like to "tame" the Communists (to put it bluntly, probably even to the point where they crack), but Putin really doesn't want to reform the way the systemic opposition works. That's why the Communists will probably try to remain acceptable to the president, but will also try to test his Administration’s patience.

Given how things really work, the balance of power is still weighted towards the regime (remember how all the dissident deputies have been dealt with back in 2012). Most likely, only mass protests could change the situation (see point 6). I don’t rule out Putin intervening personally (in an attempt to calm tensions between Zyuganov and the Presidential Administration).

For these elections, the LDPR and A Just Russia are parties of the masses with both having around 7% of votes. I’m not sure whether the Presidential Administration really wants to see Prilepin in the State Duma (they’ll look for something safe he can divert his energy into, away from domestic politics). However, only Sergei Mironov and his sponsors really care what’s going to happen to A Just Russia.

3️⃣ New People - now in the State Duma. This is, of course, an unthinkably audacious move by those “managing” the elections. As far as I can tell, the idea of the party initially didn’t go down well with Putin - shadowy mavericks with Navalny vibes. In all probability, the green light was given somehow like this: let them take part, then we’ll see. So they were forced to ramp up the project - largely to lend it more legitimacy in order to sell it to Putin. It worked. But that doesn’t mean we should expect New People to have ingratiated themselves with Putin. Plus, the siloviki parts of the elite are not exactly going to be enamoured by these kinds of games, let alone United Russia. You can be sure Putin received a torrent of complaints about these dangerous games that go against the fundamental structure of the regime.

4️⃣ For the authorities, voting by single-mandate constituency is the most reliable, stress-free way of conducting ‘competitive’ elections. United Russia won in a record 199 constituencies, helped in several ways - electronic voting in Moscow, mobilising ‘conformists’ and those dependent on the authorities, and, well, ‘adjustments’ to the vote, as it’s become fashionable to call it (‘vote rigging’ as the non-PC would say).

5️⃣ Voting in the districts saved United Russia’s constitutional majority, which means that they could be tempted to change the electoral system to a majority vote one by 2026.

2021-09-20 13:05:09+00:00

Here is the approximate distribution of seats after counting 97% of the votes:

Seats by party list and district mandates

United Russia: 125 + 199 = 324 (-19)

CPRF: 48 + 9 = 57 (+15)

A Just Russia: 18 + 8 = 26 (+3)

LDPR: 18 + 1 = 19 (-20)

New People: 13 + 0 = 13 (+13)

In addition, single mandates:

Rodina: 1 (-)

Party of Growth: 1 (+1)

Civic Platform: 1 (-)

Self-nominated: 5 (+4)

2021-09-19 18:20:04+00:00

Voting in the Duma elections ended at 21.00, Moscow Time. Results according to an all-Russia exit poll conducted by INSOMAR:

United Russia – 45%

Communist Party – 21%

LDPR – 8.6%

A Just Russia – For Truth – 7.9%

All other parties are below 5%.

After counting 8.9% of the votes, United Russia has received 38.57%. The Communist Party occupy second place with 25.17%, followed by the LDPR (9.6%) and New People (7.89%). A Just Russia – For Truth achieved fifth place with 6.66%.

2021-09-19 12:37:30+00:00

Aleksei Venediktov has published (Rus) more polling data that he says was reported to Putin's administration:

United Russia - 47.1%

Communists - 19.2%

Liberal Democrats - 8.8%

A Just Russia - For Truth - 8.6%

New People - 5.1%

2021-09-19 12:31:13+00:00

RUMOUR. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu could be appointed deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the Siberian Federal District.

That's according to unofficial sources speaking to Krasnoyarsk news site Prospekt Mira, which also allege Shoigu would head the supervisory board of the state development corporation in the regions, which plans to allocate 90 billion RUB ($1.25 billion) to infrastructure projects.

Earlier, Shoigu publicly suggested building three to five new megacities with more than a million inhabitants in Siberia.

2021-09-19 11:24:51+00:00

Meduza special correspondent Andrei Pertsev writes exclusively for R.Politik on the most intriguing voting districts in Moscow.

***

In Moscow, the districts that are particularly deserving of attention are those with eye-catching and colourful campaigns, and those where the pro-government candidates might actually lose.

In these “interesting” districts, the candidates that have been allowed to run by the Mayor’s Office have clashed brutally with each other.

For example in the 198th District there are Anastasia Bryukhanova of the “Urban Projects” and ‘political technologist’ and human rights activist Marina Litvinovich.

“A Just Russia” candidate Galina Khovanskaya is supported by the authorities. Bryukhanova and Litvinovich primarily attack each other, which helps Khovanskaya’s results. However, were Khovanskaya to lose to either Bryukhanova or Litvinovich, it wouldn’t upset the Mayor’s Office too much.

In the 197th District, where the pro-authorities candidate is anchorman Yevgeny Popov, the CPRF nominated activist and MSU professor Mikhail Lobanov, and his opponent from Yabloko is Kirill Goncharov. They don’t attack each other, but they split the opposition vote there - which is good for Popov. Goncharov is an outsider for this district.

The situation is similar in the 205th District, where judging by the results of the elections to the Moscow City Duma, here the left is stronger. Yabloko is fielding Alyona Popova, famous for her stance on women’s rights.

The Communists have one of their main ideologists, Sergei Obukhov, meanwhile the authorities back TV scientist Anatoly Vasserman. Popova, in her speeches on social media, has focused on criticising Obukhov, who is, in turn, supported by Smart Voting. Judging by the reaction to her posts, her criticism is pushing significant numbers of democrats and ‘Smart Voters’ away from Obukhov. Therefore, Alyona Popova acts as a spoiler.

These are examples of districts where the Mayor Office’s tactics have been successful.

The 208th District (CAO) is seen as a really troublesome, yet still competitive, district. The pro-government candidate is activist and Liza Alert co-ordinator Oleg Leonov. His main opponent is Moscow City Duma deputy Sergei Mitrokhin from Yabloko.

Leonov is the more favoured candidate for the Presidential Administration. But the Presidential Administration, and especially the Mayor’s Office, won’t lose any sleep if Mitrokhin wins. By all accounts, the Mayor’s Office and Yabloko have a good working relationship.

For instance, the ‘old wave’ democrat and member of the Public Chamber of Moscow, Vladimir Ryzhkov, was nominated by Yabloko in a by-election to the Moscow City Duma. He is opposed only by a nominal opponent from United Russia in this protest district, and so Ryzhkov can be considered to have received the tacit blessing of the authorities. It is symptomatic that Smart Voting in this district supports the CPRF candidate.

According to my information, the Mayor’s Office has problems in the 210th and 201st districts. There it is supporting some fairly unsuccessful candidates (astronaut Roman Romanenko in the 210th and ONF member, Svetlana Razvorotneva, in the 201st), whose campaign HQs have led rather abortive campaigns.

The protest vote, however, is not divided. In the 210th district, a fairly strong opposition candidate who was barred from campaigning himself, Roman Yuneman, is now campaigning for the Communist, Mikhail Tarantsov. In the district of Razvorotneva, the Communist Anastasia Udaltsova is also campaigning successfully. Both Tarantsov and Udaltsova are supported by Smart Voting, so they may win, if the protest vote is consolidated.

2021-09-18 18:31:54+00:00

OPINION. Aleksander Plyuschev (Ekho Moskvy) on Telegram’s decision to ban Smart Vote bots.

Google and Apple are big companies that don't owe anything to anyone - they can always say "it's just business". Some people have appealed to their declared values, but these are not sincere. There are two significant differences with Telegram in this case:

1. We didn't see any demands communicated to Telegram by the authorities. The issue wasn't debated and scrutinized by Maria Zakharova, and neither was it discussed in the Federal Assembly. It was Durov's initiative. Google and Apple have made every effort to highlight to us the fact that they were being censored, yet Durov isn't bothered that his actions look like self-censorship.

2. Durov had popular support. Many people came out for him at rallies (including Alexei Navalny!) and participated in digital resistance on his behalf. There has never been a similar relationship between Russians and Google or Apple. That's why there are fewer expectations of them.

https://t.me/PlushevChannel/13407

2021-09-18 13:35:46+00:00

What is known (Rus) about the blocking of ‘Smart Voting’ on Telegram:

· Pavel Durov announced the blocking of ‘campaigning bots’ shortly before midnight, claiming that this accords with Russian legislation on a ‘day of silence’ – a rule which prohibits all electoral campaigning during the vote. However, the ‘day of silence’ was cancelled earlier in the year and voting began the day before the bot was banned.

· The bots were turned off approximately 25 minutes after Durov’s announcement – any attempt to interact is met with the message that they are no longer working, since to do so would ‘break local laws.’

· The ban on the ‘Smart Voting’ bot is global – attempts to access it through VPNs and in other countries meet the exact same message.

· Fake ‘Smart Voting’ bots reportedly continue to work. Some only collect addresses, while others give out voting recommendations which are different to those on the official Smart Voting list - although they do not always determine the correct location.

· The Russian authorities did not publicly demand that Telegram block the bot and there were no indications that such negotiations were ongoing. Apple and Google, according to sources, agreed to delete the Navalny app as a result of threats made to criminally prosecute their staff.

2021-09-17 21:30:39+00:00

According to Aleksei Venediktov, chief editor of Ekho Moskvy, Sergei Kiriyenko has been presented with an intriguing set of exit polls after the first day of voting and pro-government mobilisation:

United Russia - 48.2%

CPRF - 16.9%

LDPR - 8.7%

A Just Russia - 7.8%

New People - 5.2%

Yabloko - 1.2%

RPPSJ - 3.5%

Rodina - 1.3%

Communists of Russia - 1.8%

The rest garnered less than 1%.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we will see a correction because the authorities’ opponents will head to the polls.

It looks like the current results are the maximum that United Russia can achieve.

2021-09-17 15:51:33+00:00

Some voting day updates and stats for you:

🗳 Over 1 million people have already voted online in Moscow (one of 7 regions with electronic voting), 500,000 of them in the first 4 hours of voting;

🗳 98 complaints of voter coercion have been received by the Central Election Commission;

🗳 Noveta Gazeta reports it has found at least 995 candidates running in more than one constituency; Meduza believes the number to be around 1500 given party lists;

🗳 Several cases of "carousel voting" (where people are taken to a number of polling stations and vote several times) and ballot-stuffing have also been reported.

2021-09-17 13:02:21+00:00

Russia’s electronic voting system has faced attacks on the first day of the country’s key parliamentary vote, according to media reports. Election officials were quoted by Interfax as saying that the distance e-voting system had sustained DDoS attacks, calling them “perhaps not very strong, but nonetheless coming straight at us… And there is a long line of them”.

The alleged attacks have come on the same day as Google and Apple removed Team Navalny’s Smart Voting app from their respective stores. At a meeting on 16 September, lawyers representing Apple met with a Federation Council committee on state sovereignty and foreign interference. Google representatives were also present as observers.

The two companies were informed by committee member and FSB General Vladimir Dzhabarov that inaction by the companies could constitute a criminal offence for their employees. A Google source also told the New York Times that the Russian authorities had threatened criminal charges against its employees, naming specific people, which forced the company to back down. Committee chairman Andrei Klimov confirmed this and laid bare the government’s position to the companies’ lawyers, although the Apple representative claimed the app could not be deleted for legal reasons. However, by this morning, the app had been removed.

Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor also threatened fines if the app was not removed, having originally requested this on 20 August. Further meetings are to be held on 21 September.

Klimov told reporters today that banning the app was a step in the right direction, achieved after a number of measures - a call from the US embassy to the MFA, instructions from the Prosecutor's office, and previous blocking by Roskomnadzor.

Telegram channels have given a general picture of voter turnout across the country: in a number of regions, long queues have formed at polling stations. Many voters are being brought to cast their ballots in organised groups. This points to special voting tactics, when voters are taken from their districts and taken to vote at polling stations in other regions - standard practice in the past for civil servants and government-controlled company employees.

Moreover, many observers have noted a rise in the number of votes being cast from home.

2021-09-17 11:20:22+00:00

This is the first time in many years that differences (not yet conflicts) over fundamental issues of the functioning of the regime have taken shape so clearly within the Russian power system. We have not seen such clashes over the party system since Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov’s experiments with the Just Russia party back in the 2000s.

The slow erosion of the party of power as a key pillar of the regime is exacerbating fears for the future and, more interestingly still, is devaluing Putin’s role as the chief hardliner and guarantor of stability. The Duma elections are simply compounding the situation, since they are an attempt by the system to reconstruct itself using old logic in a new political reality.

In this new reality, with the “non-system” (real) opposition decimated and politics replaced with administrative procedures, the ruling party is a dinosaur that appears to be losing relevance. Simply achieving the required results at these elections will not solve the problems that will arise after the vote.

https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/85360

2021-09-16 15:11:01+00:00

Many of those backed by the Smart Voting strategy – 69% – are candidates from the Communist Party (CPRF). The party, and particularly the upper échelons of the leadership, had long distanced itself from Smart Voting, accusing Navalny of harming the country and labelled Smart Voting as "interfering in [Russia’s] internal affairs".

Now though, they appear to have changed their tune. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio on Thursday, CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov declared “the smartest vote is for the Communists and the left-patriotic bloc” and made the point that those who had made it onto the Smart Voting list obviously understand the fact that “Russians are demanding change in the country” all too well.

Zyuganov is raising the stakes in the run-up to the election and has openly declared himself as benefiting from the Smart Voting list. This is evidence of an intensifying crisis in relations with the Presidential Administration, and is Zyuganov’s response to a strong uptick in negative campaigning against the CPRF in Kremlin-controlled media.

Objectively, Smart Voting support is primarily of importance to those candidates who are part of the so-called radical wing of the CPRF, whose rhetoric barely differs from that of the non-systemic opposition, for example, Nikolai Bondarenko or Bair Zyrenov. In the end, though, there is certainly an ideological dissonance here – few of Alexei Navalny’s supporters would be prepared to vote blindly for just any candidate presented by Smart Voting, at least without reflecting on it first.

The effect of Smart Voting will be only marginal, even for the CPRF. And besides, the risk of being accused of cooperating with “Russia's enemies” is increasing - this is now a crucial risk for systemic opposition parties. Zyuganov, now in the final stages of the campaign, has decided to escalate the situation. Can we now expect a retaliatory strike from the Kremlin?

2021-09-16 13:55:02+00:00

Why aren’t domestic policy overseers in the Kremlin afraid of the potential impact of Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting strategy, particularly when the siloviki are?

There are several reasons:

1. Several sources close to the Presidential Administration have said that the Smart Voting strategy seems to be the ‘lesser evil’: “It’s better to let them play than having them storm the Kremlin tomorrow”, one said (half in jest, of course).

2. There are strong suspicions that Navalny’s team has not had sufficient polling (which is understandable, as his anti-corruption organisation has been razed to the ground, and most of its staff have had to leave the country) in order to pinpoint the strongest candidates to oppose United Russia.

3. In some districts with prominent liberal candidates Smart Voting has selected people who pose the least threat to the authorities. For example, in District 198, it supported Anastasia Brukhanova (an independent) instead of Marina Litvinovich (Yabloko Party). There have been contradictory polls, which makes it harder to work out who is more likely to win, but Brukhanova was allowed to run to spoil Litvinovich’s chances.

However, the situation is actually even more complicated than that: while the Kremlin supports Galina Khovanskaya in this district (formally from Just Russia, but a deal was struck with United Russia), for the Mayor’s Office anyone from this trio would suit, as Brukhanova and Litvinovich have ties to Sobyanin’s administration. In District 205, Smart Voting supported a prominent Communist, Sergei Obukhov, instead of the liberal candidate Alyona Popova, though their standing in the polls is seen by many as neck-and-neck. As a result, the liberal community’s attitude to Smart Voting has been split (not too smart, huh?), which is ultimately good for the Kremlin.

4. Most of the candidates supported by Smart Voting are more or less acceptable for the Kremlin (as, in fact, all registered candidates have been given the nod). As the systemic opposition has had to become even more “systemic” than before, the fact its candidates might do slightly better will not worry the Kremlin. Moreover, domestic policy overseers might even prefer (Rus) to see the ruling United Russia party's position slightly weakened in the political system, to make it more pliable if its ratings were to slide.

5. Finally, most experts agree that any tangible effect from Smart Voting will be limited. When you bet on someone who might win and they do, it’s almost impossible to calculate how big the impact of your support was. Plus, in some districts, candidates backed by Smart Voting have been 'cleared' to win. In St. Petersburg, Oksana Dmitriyeva from the Growth Party and Elena Drapeko from Just Russia (Districts 217 and 214, respectively) have struck deal with the city’s administration that they will not have strong opponents to United Russia, and therefore their victory is assured.’

2021-09-16 10:01:14+00:00

Smart Voting, created and promoted by the organisation of Alexey Navalny, is an electoral strategy which aims to displace as many United Russia candidates as possible in the Duma elections. In each Single Mandate District, the opposition candidate with the highest probability of beating United Russia is identified and people are urged to vote tactically for them, whichever party they belong to. There are 225 seats being contested, with United Russia currently holding 203 of them. To counter this, Navalny’s team yesterday published their list (Rus) of alternative Smart Voting candidates. The list has allocated 137 seats to the Communist Party, 45 to A Just Russia – The Truth, 20 candidates to the LDPR, 10 candidates to Yabloko, and a handful to independent candidates and smaller parties.

However, the initiative has not gone unmet. Roskomnadzor has been blocking the Smart Voting website since September, also demanding that Western tech giants, Google and Apple, remove the app from their stores and threatening retaliation if they do not. Neither has so far complied. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, raised this topic at a meeting on 10 September with US Ambassador John Sullivan, while Maria Zakharova, Spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, has accused the app developers of having ties to the Pentagon. In what is seen by some as a direct response to the list’s publication, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, published his own list of candidates for Moscow yesterday.

While for the liberal camp, it may appear that the Kremlin seeks to bulldozer Navalny’s initiative into submission, the administration considers its counter-measures to be ‘gentle.’ It is important to note that actions taken against Smart Voting run across departmental lines. While the FSB (more precisely, the Head of the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism, Aleksei Sedov) is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the non-systemic opposition, the Presidential Administration, charged with running ‘systemic’ politics, takes a more relaxed view. Siloviki, in a general sense, are more likely to consider Smart Voting a dangerous game; domestic policy overseers consider it mostly harmless or even, to an extent, useful (the following post will explain further). These dynamics explain the varied nature of official responses – overlapping soft approaches (e.g. issuing fake Smart Voting recommendations) and cruder coercion (e.g. blocking the DNS services of Google and Cloudfare) reflect real differences in perspective.

2021-09-13 19:35:00+00:00

R.Politik is pleased to present our bulletin ahead of the State Duma elections - one of the three main topics of this issue. We also look at the incoherence of the Russian position on the Taliban, recent Russian-Belarus developments and the state of Mishustin’s government.

Bulletin No. 15 (79) 2021

In this EDITION:

◽️ Taliban - from open support to disappointment. We explain why Russian officials have had to correct their rhetoric on the situation in Afghanistan, why the Foreign Ministry turned out to be such a consistent advocate of a terrorist group, and why they are opposed by by the siloviki. Will the drawbacks of the pro-Taliban approach impact the stance of Lavrov and what are alternatives? We also look at recent agreements between Russia and Belarus, focusing on what plans Russia has for Lukashenko’s future.

◽️Mishustin's cabinet. We are looking at two issues - how Putin’s administration seeks to increase their control over the implementation of the National Projects and how it may impact Mishustin’s position. The second one - how the government is going to manage increasing expenditures due to ‘election spending’. One of the most important intrigues is related to a conflict of interests between Putin’s administration and the financial agencies.

◽️ Several days before State Duma elections, we:

📌 look at expectations: polls, turnout and forecasts;

📌 explain some internal splits (domestic policy overseers and conservative circles, including the siloviki) about what to consider as a decent result for United Russia; whether a constitutional majority is possible and taming the ruling party;

📌 explore the main risks for the authorities - turnout and Navalny’s Smart Voting strategy. One of the most important issues is policy toward IT-giants, especially Google and YouTube. While elections remain the responsibility of domestic policy overseers, there is an attempt by hawks to launch an internet crackdown.

As always, our analysis is accompanied by social data, recent studies, as well as inside information from our sources. You’ll also find our recommended reading for extra insight into the reality of Russian politics.

2021-09-02 12:58:26+00:00

Dear friends, R.Politik's summer vacation is at an end we're diving once again into the world of Russian politics. To make our posts richer, more consistent and detailed, we're looking for interns or volunteers to help develop our Telegram. State Duma elections are around the corner and there are a lot of events, trends and issues that need to be explained.

A good knowledge of Russian, fluent English and a decent knowledge of Russia's political system are a must. Please, share this information with friends and colleagues, and send CVs to rpolitik@protonmail.com

Yours,

Tatiana Stanovaya