, Moscow on 27 October 2013
2001 "Save NTV" protests One of the earliest acts of dissent against Vladimir Putin were the protests against the takeover of the independent television
NTV by Putin-aligned
Gazprom from 31 March to 14 April 2001. Members of the State Duma from the opposition, including
Boris Nemtsov and
Grigory Yavlinsky, were present and demanded the preservation of the ownership critical of the Russian government. The protester demands were not met.
2004–2005 Russian benefits monetization protests These protests were directed against Putin's economic reforms that were seen as primarily driven by a controversial social welfare overhaul and changes to Russia's political structure.
2006–2008 Dissenters' March The Dissenters' March was a series of Russian opposition protests started in 2006. It was preceded by opposition rallies in Russian cities in December 2005 which involved fewer people. Most of the Dissenters' March protests were unsanctioned by authorities. The Dissenters' March rally was organized by
The Other Russia, a broad umbrella group that included opposition leaders, including the
National Bolshevik Party with its leader
Eduard Limonov, far-left
Vanguard of Red Youth as well as liberals such as former
world chess champion and
United Civil Front leader
Garry Kasparov.
2009–2011 Strategy-31 Strategy-31 was a series of civic protests in support of the right to peaceful assembly in
Russia guaranteed by
Article 31 of the
Russian Constitution. Since 31 July 2009, the protests were held in Moscow on Triumfalnaya Square on the 31st of every month with 31 days. Strategy-31 was led by writer
Eduard Limonov and human rights activist
Lyudmila Alexeyeva.
2011–2013 Russian protests Starting from 5 December 2011, the day after the elections to the State Duma, there have been repeated massive political actions of Russian citizens who disagree with the outcome of these "elections". The current surge of mass opposition rallies has been called in some publications "a snow revolution". These rallies continued during the campaign for the election of the President of Russia and after 4 March 2012, presidential election, in which Putin officially won the first round. The protesters claimed that the elections were accompanied by violations of the election legislation and widespread fraud. One of the main slogans of the majority of actions was "For Fair Elections!" and a white ribbon has been chosen as symbol of protests. Beginning from spring 2012 the actions were called marches of millions and took the form of a march followed by a rally. The speeches of participants were anti-Putin and anti-government. The "March of Millions" on 6 May 2012 at the approach to
Bolotnaya Square was dispersed by the police. In the
Bolotnaya Square case 17 people are accused of committing violence against police (12 of them are in jail). A large number of human rights defenders and community leaders have declared the detainees innocent and the police responsible for the clashes. For the rally on 15 December 2012, the anniversary of the mass protests against rigged elections, the organizers failed to agree with the authorities, and participation was low. Several thousand people gathered without placards on
Lubyanka Square and laid flowers at the
Solovetsky Stone.
2014 anti-war protests In 2014, members of the Russian opposition have held
anti-war protests in opposition to the
Russian military intervention in Ukraine in the aftermath of the
2014 Ukrainian revolution and
Crimean crisis. The March of Peace protests took place in
Moscow on 15 March, a day before the
Crimean status referendum. The protests have been the largest in Russia since the 2011 protests. Reuters reported that 30,000 people participated in 15 March anti-war rally.
2017–2018 Russian protests in Moscow, 26 February 2017 On 26 March 2017, protests against alleged corruption in the Russian government took place simultaneously in many cities across the country. The protests began after the release of the film
He Is Not Dimon to You by
Alexei Navalny's
Anti-Corruption Foundation. An April 2017
Levada poll found that 45% of surveyed Russians supported the
resignation of Russian Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev, against it 33% of respondents.
Newsweek reported that "An opinion poll by the Moscow-based Levada Center indicated that 38 percent of Russians supported the rallies and that 67 percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption." A May 2017 Levada poll found that 58% of surveyed Russians supported the protests, while 23% said they disapprove.
2018 Russian pension protests , give us back elections", "Deputies, we have not chosen you!" From July 2018, almost every weekend, protest rallies and demonstrations were organized against the planned retirement age hike. Such events occurred in nearly all major cities countrywide including Novosibirsk, St.-Petersburg and Moscow. These events were coordinated by all opposition parties with the leading role of the communists. Also trade unions and some individual politicians (among whom
Navalny) functioned as organizers of the public actions. An intention to hike the retirement age has drastically downed the rating of the President
Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev in Russia. So in July 2018, just 49% would vote for Putin if the presidential elections were held in that moment (while during the elections in March 2018, he got 76.7%).
2019 Russian protests . August 10, 2019. In the first half of 2019 there were approximately 863 protests across the country. From July 2019, protest rallies for an access to
2019 Moscow City Duma election of independent candidates started in Moscow. The 20 July rally was the largest since 2012. The 27 July rally set a record in number of detainees and police violence. The 10 August rally outnumbered the 27 July rally, oppositional sources report 50–60 thousand participants.
2020 Russian protests On 27 February 2020,
Navalny,
Yashin,
Yavlinsky,
Volkov, and many other opposition politicians were present on a march in memory of a killed former
Deputy Prime Minister and Vladimir Putin's critic
Boris Nemtsov. The demonstration included around 23,000 opposition supporters. On 20 August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, leading to his medical treatment in
Berlin,
Germany.
2020–21 Khabarovsk Krai protests On 9 July 2020, the popular governor of the
Khabarovsk Krai,
Sergei Furgal, who defeated the candidate of Putin's
United Russia party in elections two years ago, was arrested and flown to Moscow. Furgal was arrested 15 years after the alleged crimes he is accused of. Every day since 11 June, mass protests have been held in the Khabarovsk Krai in support of Furgal. On 25 July, tens of thousands of people were estimated to have taken part in the third major rally in Khabarovsk. The protests included chants of "Away with Putin!", "This is our region", "Furgal was our choice" or "shame on LDPR" and "Shame on the Kremlin!" In a
Levada Center poll carried out from 24 to 25 July 2020, 45% of surveyed Russians viewed the protests positively, 26% neutrally and 17% negatively.
2021 Navalny Protests , 23 January 2021 On 23 January 2021, protests across Russia were held in support of the Russian opposition leader
Alexei Navalny, who was detained and then jailed after returning to Russia on 17 January following his
poisoning. A few days before the protests, an
investigation by Navalny and his
Anti-Corruption Foundation was published, accusing Putin of corruption. The video garnered 70 million views in a few days. Since jailing of Navalny a "hardening of the course" was observed from the government side, with a choice of "go West or East" being offered to prominent opposition figures, meaning a non-negotiable alternative of either going on emigration ("West") or to prison colonies ("East"). Among those who left Russia are politicians
Lyubov Sobol,
Dmitry Gudkov,
Ivan Zhdanov (whose father had been however arrested in Russia as a hostage),
Kira Yarmysh, journalists
Andrei Soldatov,
Irina Borogan,
Roman Badanin. The wave of repressions has been also linked with the September 2021 Duma elections.
2021 Russian election protests Protests against alleged large-scale fraud in favour of the ruling party were held.
2022 anti-war protests was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for discussing the
Bucha massacre in Ukraine on a
YouTube stream. , who was arrested for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war messages Following the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, protesters have used the
white-blue-white flag as a symbol of opposition though not all used the flag. Several opposition activists (such as
Maria Motuznaya) had criticized the justification by AssezJeune (one of the creators of the flag) to remove the red stripe. On the afternoon of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the
Investigative Committee of Russia issued a warning to Russians that they would face legal repercussions for joining unsanctioned protests related to "the tense foreign political situation". The protests have been met with widespread repression by the Russian authorities. According to
OVD-Info, at least 14,906 people were detained from 24 February to 13 March, including the largest single-day mass arrests in post-Soviet Russian history on 6 March. In February 2022, more than 30,000 technology workers, 6,000 medical workers, 3,400 architects, more than 4,300 teachers, more than 17,000 artists, 5,000 scientists, and 2,000 actors, directors, and other creative figures signed open letters calling for Putin's government to stop the war. Some Russians who signed petitions against Russia's war in Ukraine lost their jobs. On 17 March, Putin gave a speech in which he called opponents of the war "scum and traitors," saying that a "natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country." Russian authorities were encouraging Russians to report their friends, colleagues and family members to the police for expressing opposition to the war in Ukraine. More than 2,000 people were detained or fined by May 2022 under the laws prohibiting "fake" information about the military. In July 2022,
Alexei Gorinov, a member of the
Krasnoselsky district council in Moscow, was sentenced to seven years in prison after making anti-war comments at a council meeting in March. Lawyer
Pavel Chikov said that this was the first jail term under the new
Russian 2022 war censorship laws. According to
Amnesty International, as of June 2023, up to 20,000 Russian citizens had been subject to heavy reprisals for opposing the war in Ukraine. In October 2023, Putin's close associate
Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma, said that Russians who "desire the victory of the murderous Nazi Kyiv regime" should be sent to the far-eastern region of
Magadan, known for its Stalin-era
Gulag camps, and forced to work in the mines. In November 2023, Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel that
Russians who left the country after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are now returning "should understand that no one here is waiting for them with open arms" because they "committed treason against Russia".
2022–present Russian partisan movement In response to the invasion of Ukraine, numerous armed
pro-democratic, and
anti-authoritarian partisan and insurgent groups have sprung up within Russia in open rebellion with the aim of sabotaging the war effort and overthrowing Putin and his regime. These groups primarily engage in
guerrilla warfare against the state and utilize the destruction of infrastructure such as
railways,
military recruitment centers, and radio towers, as well as other means to harm the state such as conducting assassinations. Some of the most notable groups involved in the conflict include the
Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK) regarded by
The Insider as "The most active 'subversive' force" within Russia since the war began, the
Freedom of Russia Legion, and the
far-right Russian Volunteer Corps.
2023 Wagner rebellion On June 23, 2023, forces loyal to
Yevgeny Prigozhin's
Wagner Group began a mutiny against the Russian government. The group justified their revolt by citing the
Russian Ministry of Defence's mishandling of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (namely blaming
Sergei Shoigu, the
Russian Minister of Defense), as well as claiming the Russian army shelled one of the Wagner group's barracks, resulting in casualties. Wagner occupied the city of
Rostov-on-Don, surrounding and then seizing the headquarters of the
Southern Military District. Prigozhin vowed to march on
Moscow and arrest Shoigu, and other Russian generals, and put them on trial for murder of Wagner personnel. There were no sizeable spontaneous displays of public support for the Putin government during the rebellion. The Russian population displayed a predominantly "silent" and apathetic reaction. Russia analyst Anna Matveeva contrasted the Russian public's response to that of the Turkish public during the
2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, where numerous Turkish citizens actively participated in anti-coup demonstrations.
2024 Russian presidential election Putin was due to have to stand down as president in 2024 due to term limits in
Russia's constitution, but it was widely expected that he would attempt to stay in power through certain means such as changing the constitution, even though Putin claimed otherwise in 2018. As predicted, Putin announced that constitutional changes would be proposed allowing him to stay in power until 2036 by "resetting" his terms, widely criticised by opponents, and these changes were then 'approved' in
a disputed referendum in which independent election monitors received hundreds of reports of violations and state employees were deliberately prompted to vote in favour. Journalist
Yekaterina Duntsova tried to run in the 2024 election on a platform
opposing the war in Ukraine, commenting: "Any sane person taking this step would be afraid – but fear must not win". However, she was quickly barred from running by the
Central Election Commission, which claimed that she had made '100 mistakes' such as spelling errors on her forms and so should be denied registration. The
BBC reported on Dunstova's rejection that: "the immediate slap-down of a Putin critic will be seen as evidence by some that no dissent will be tolerated in the campaign". Girkin, a former
FSB agent, was later sentenced to four years imprisonment. s in Russia, February 2024
Boris Nadezhdin declared his intention to run on a platform of opposing Putin and the Ukraine war. He quickly gained support, and queues formed in towns and villages across Russia and outside Boris Nadezhdin's headquarters in Moscow to sign their name in support of his bid for presidency. The number of Russians who had turned up to sign their names was so unexpectedly high that extra sign-up centres had to be added in Moscow.),
Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
Ekaterina Schulmann,
Yulia Navalnaya (wife of
Alexei Navalny),
Ilya Varlamov,
Lyubov Sobol and many others. Russia's main opposition leader Navalny also passed a message from his imprisonment giving his backing to Nadezhdin's campaign. Multiple sources, including from inside the Kremlin, stated that the Kremlin would likely seek to deny Nadezhdin a place on the ballot. The CEC regularly uses the process of having to collect signatures to refuse to register would-be opposition candidates, acting as a form of filter to stop unwanted developments for the Kremlin. On 30 January 2024, Kremlin propagandist and television presenter
Vladimir Solovyov warned Nadezhdin: "I feel bad for Boris. The fool didn’t realize that he’s not being set up to run for president but for a criminal case on charges of betraying the Motherland." The election commission claimed that only 95,587 of his signatures in support of his candidacy were valid, just short of the 100,000 needed to run. Nadezhdin published evidence of this, showing Mayakovsky Street typed up as 'Myakovsky Street', the city of
Salekhard misspelled as 'Salikhard', and one address in
Rostov-on-Don typed up as 'Rostov-on-Dom'. Nadezhdin explained that the commission then used this to reject these signatures on the grounds that the address of these people "did not match". The press contacted the man whose address had been incorrectly entered as 'Rostov-on-Dom', and he confirmed he had indeed added his signature in support of Nadezhdin's candidacy, saying "this constitutes election obstruction". Navalny
then died in suspicious circumstances in his harsh imprisonment at a prison colony in the Arctic Circle, aged only 47, on 16 February 2024. After his death, Russians began bringing flowers to monuments to victims of
political repression in cities across the country. People laid flowers at Moscow's
Solovetsky Stone and the
Wall of Grief. The Moscow
Prosecutor's Office warned Russians against mass protests. Hundreds of people across more than 30 Russian cities were detained by police merely for attending makeshift memorials to Navalny. He had previously been poisoned with Novichok by the Russian secret services
in 2020, which had only been discovered at the time as an emergency evacuation had been arranged to the specialist
Charité hospital in
Berlin, which then carried out the tests which identified the poison. Navalny's mother attempted to go to the prison colony he died in to collect Navalny's body, but was repeatedly obstructed from doing so and instead sent to a morgue where his body had never been taken, and not told where his body was. Independent analysts also reject the authorities' medical explanations for his death. suspiciously died in February 2024, his widow
Yulia Navalnaya pledged to continue his work, asking Russians to "stand beside me". The authorities belatedly returned Navalny's body eight days after his death, 250,000 people also watched a livestream of his funeral provided by his team, despite apparent attempts by the authorities to interrupt internet coverage. The crowds who attended chanted "no to war", "Russia without Putin" and "Russia will be free", even though there was a noticeable police presence. She appeared before the
European Parliament on 28 February 2024 and was given a standing ovation for her emotional speech, in which she stated that defeating Putin requires innovation instead of only applying sanctions and resolutions against his regime. In March, she reiterated Navalny's request for Russians to protest at the presidential election by all turning up and forming long queues at polling stations at midday on 17 March, since it was a protest action that could show the strength of anti-Putin feeling without the authorities being able to prevent it or arrest people for it. ==Opposition figures==