4 ms·

Serious question. How has this guy not fallen out of his jail cell window? What are the politics that keeps him alive?

by anonuser123456 5y ago

aaronbrethorst 5y ago
Don't want to create a martyr...
- q1w2 5y ago
  I'm pleasantly surprised he was able to get the message out at all... Per the article "He is able to publish social media posts through his lawyers and allies.". Although this will be the last message that Russians will see from him on Instagram since Instagram will be banned in Russia as of March 14th (tomorrow). Translation of his post.... "The most important people" is a stupid expression. Well, how do you define them? All important, and it is impossible to weigh all the factors that determine the importance of people. In peacetime. And now, I think, we can say that the most important people on the planet - those who in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities went out and will go again to anti-war rallies.Mad maniac Putin will most quickly be stopped by the people of Russia now if they oppose the war. And it's a tough marathon. Fight for exhaustion. With fear and arrests. But it's definitely not a futile fight. Not a symbolic gesture of desperation. Look even official, court sociology. They say 71% are for the war, 29% are against. Even if we believe it, it turns out that every third person supports the anti-war movement at the start. And this was before the war hit us too, with sanctions and economic disaster. Until the main horror of the war - coffins with sons returning to their mothers. I am speaking to you as a viewer. Even the official figure of the losses of the Russian army - 498 people - was not mentioned on TV NEVER. The picture of what is happening, drawn by Putin’s propaganda: there are almost no deaths on both sides, the Ukrainian army has fled, there is almost no destruction, “gangs of Nazis” have settled in some places, but they will soon be destroyed. Ukrainians meet Russian tanks with flowers. To live such a picture of the world - even in the minds of the most stupid and stubborn - is not long.
zozbot234 5y ago
Putin needs some plausible excuse to scale back his "special operation" without looking like a lightweight or a loser, and big protests throughout Russia would give him just that. So this is a very shrewd move by Navalny that just might work to tip things over, even though you would rightly expect such protests to be generally ineffective.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  I agree that Putin could be looking for an excuse to pull back but this doesn't seem like the right one. His story is that Russians support him. He has to be able to claim some sort of victory that fits with the denazification/liberation/"Ukrainian people love Russia" narratives. Maybe he'll be satisfied to turn Ukraine into cold war Germany with a wall through the middle of Kiev? But even if he finds a way to pull out and save face, will the sanctions be lifted? I can't see that happening. It's not ok to go blow up your neighbor's cities then just pack up and go home. There would have to be reparations and Putin is clearly never going to agree with that.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    He could claim "mission accomplished" and have at least a colorable argument that he's right. Reparations could be covertly agreed to and take the form of, e.g. significant liberal/pro-market reforms in both Russia and Ukraine to create a real, workable long-term alternative to NATO and perhaps even EU membership. Think the Chinese development model. That would mean Putin effectively gets the Russian Empire redux he wants, and stops squandering these countries' hidden long-term potential.
- socceroos 5y ago
  This would be a horrible approach, surely. He would give his citizens the precedent that exerting pressure on the regime yields results.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    These are not normal circumstances though, everyone ought to be aware of that. And even then, "exerting pressure" is not the same thing as, e.g. trying to oust Putin. One can very much allow the former and not the latter.
aaomidi 5y ago
A lot of dictators have either propped up a specific opposition. Sometimes the person being propped up knows they're a puppet. Sometimes they don't. I'm not necessarily saying that's what's happening here. But navanly isn't the savior that most russians would back. The really strong and unifying opposition though generally disappears.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Kind of like how Microsoft propped up Apple in the 90s. Gotta keep an illusion of competitiveness to avoid accumulating too many targets on your back.
  - rasz 5y ago
    They didnt, but they sure build great PR story around it over the years. Microsoft was involved in a lawsuit after paying one of Apple contractors to steal QuickTime code. "investing" in Apple was part of the settlement. https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... "David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU
alexeiz 5y ago
No need. The popularity of Navalny in the West and in Russia is wildly different.

Serious question. How has this guy not fallen out of his jail cell window? What are the politics that keeps him alive?

aaronbrethorst 5y ago

Don't want to create a martyr...

q1w2 5y ago
I'm pleasantly surprised he was able to get the message out at all... Per the article "He is able to publish social media posts through his lawyers and allies.". Although this will be the last message that Russians will see from him on Instagram since Instagram will be banned in Russia as of March 14th (tomorrow). Translation of his post.... "The most important people" is a stupid expression. Well, how do you define them? All important, and it is impossible to weigh all the factors that determine the importance of people. In peacetime. And now, I think, we can say that the most important people on the planet - those who in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities went out and will go again to anti-war rallies.Mad maniac Putin will most quickly be stopped by the people of Russia now if they oppose the war. And it's a tough marathon. Fight for exhaustion. With fear and arrests. But it's definitely not a futile fight. Not a symbolic gesture of desperation. Look even official, court sociology. They say 71% are for the war, 29% are against. Even if we believe it, it turns out that every third person supports the anti-war movement at the start. And this was before the war hit us too, with sanctions and economic disaster. Until the main horror of the war - coffins with sons returning to their mothers. I am speaking to you as a viewer. Even the official figure of the losses of the Russian army - 498 people - was not mentioned on TV NEVER. The picture of what is happening, drawn by Putin’s propaganda: there are almost no deaths on both sides, the Ukrainian army has fled, there is almost no destruction, “gangs of Nazis” have settled in some places, but they will soon be destroyed. Ukrainians meet Russian tanks with flowers. To live such a picture of the world - even in the minds of the most stupid and stubborn - is not long.

zozbot234 5y ago

Putin needs some plausible excuse to scale back his "special operation" without looking like a lightweight or a loser, and big protests throughout Russia would give him just that. So this is a very shrewd move by Navalny that just might work to tip things over, even though you would rightly expect such protests to be generally ineffective.

bagacrap 5y ago
I agree that Putin could be looking for an excuse to pull back but this doesn't seem like the right one. His story is that Russians support him. He has to be able to claim some sort of victory that fits with the denazification/liberation/"Ukrainian people love Russia" narratives. Maybe he'll be satisfied to turn Ukraine into cold war Germany with a wall through the middle of Kiev? But even if he finds a way to pull out and save face, will the sanctions be lifted? I can't see that happening. It's not ok to go blow up your neighbor's cities then just pack up and go home. There would have to be reparations and Putin is clearly never going to agree with that.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  He could claim "mission accomplished" and have at least a colorable argument that he's right. Reparations could be covertly agreed to and take the form of, e.g. significant liberal/pro-market reforms in both Russia and Ukraine to create a real, workable long-term alternative to NATO and perhaps even EU membership. Think the Chinese development model. That would mean Putin effectively gets the Russian Empire redux he wants, and stops squandering these countries' hidden long-term potential.
socceroos 5y ago
This would be a horrible approach, surely. He would give his citizens the precedent that exerting pressure on the regime yields results.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  These are not normal circumstances though, everyone ought to be aware of that. And even then, "exerting pressure" is not the same thing as, e.g. trying to oust Putin. One can very much allow the former and not the latter.

aaomidi 5y ago

A lot of dictators have either propped up a specific opposition. Sometimes the person being propped up knows they're a puppet. Sometimes they don't. I'm not necessarily saying that's what's happening here. But navanly isn't the savior that most russians would back. The really strong and unifying opposition though generally disappears.

anonporridge 5y ago
Kind of like how Microsoft propped up Apple in the 90s. Gotta keep an illusion of competitiveness to avoid accumulating too many targets on your back.
- rasz 5y ago
  They didnt, but they sure build great PR story around it over the years. Microsoft was involved in a lawsuit after paying one of Apple contractors to steal QuickTime code. "investing" in Apple was part of the settlement. https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... "David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU

alexeiz 5y ago

No need. The popularity of Navalny in the West and in Russia is wildly different.