Is opposition to Putin possible in, or outside, Russia? | DW News

Russian police have arrested more than 100 demonstrators who took to the streets to mark the birthday of jailed Kremlin ciritc Alexey Navalny.
Demonstrators held handwritten signs calling for his release. The human rights monitoring group OVD-Info said Navalny supporters were detained in 23 cities across Russia, including Moscow and St Petersburg. The prominent opposition leader was jailed for fraud and contempt of court. But Navalny maintains the charges were trumped up to silence him. Russia's government has passed increasingly tough laws to stifle criticism since its invasion of Ukraine.
So is it even possible to oppose the government in Vladimir Putin's Russia? DW caught up with a local opposition politician in Moscow.

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[ronperkins]

What a 💩country where you go to jail for holding a sign! How sad for those people.

[ricardomora]

Damn, that kid sounds more professional than the ones in power in russia, that country needs more people like him.

[Robrulzicloud]

Literally seeing people being ARRESTED for protesting answers your question 💀

[FFGuy]

Konkov is a very respectable young man who should be commended for his effort

[SkepticalChris]

That's one brave kid. At only 23 years old he's doing for his community than I ever have, in almost double his lifetime. Kudos to him!

[shawndev]

Opposition is possible, but you must do it within prison.

[lowwastehighmelanin]

Bless this young man. I hope for positive things for his future.

[danboyd]

If you have to arrest critics, then you are weak.

[johngray]

It's very sad that so many Russian people have to die to satisfy Putin's ego.
My heart goes out to the Russian people and the people of Ukraine fighting for their right to live as they want, without the dominance of Russia.

[mrDM]

According to Garry Kasparov, opposition within Russia is only possible after Russia abandons or loses this war.

[ahh]

Hopefully Russians will one day have the opportunity to have a just government.

[tonyborg]

How can you support a criminal dictator

[trailrideadventures]

It's not the time for a simple sign of protest only to be jailed. It's time to join a group and take up arms.

[savelysavely]

Keep in mind that there is a law about "discrediting the army". You could go in jail for 8 years. This law implement even without saying anything about army. Put aside that this law is essentially is just to shut down everybody who disagree. So please dont compare protests in democratic country and in Russia, absolutely different risks, you always could rely on human rights groups, in Russia there is none which could help to defend you against government

UPD for legitimate question about why there were protest in Belarus and no mass protest in Russia. First of all you see the opportunity to change only then comes action, not vise versa - political science. Then: No one believe that it could change something, all those 20 years of Putin he showed the society that collective action dont lead to any result. So there is frustration. But first of all you need structure which could organise prostest around which people could build a horizontal connections - all those were demiloshed by Kremlin, organizations working from abroad are not effective, word from abroad is cheaper that word from inside of country . Even with organization around which horizontal connections were build up - Belarus didnt succeed, Lukashenko is in power as he was before. Iran by the way too - a few journalists waiting to be hang up to death for writing about protests and brutal laws

[Wiersq]

100 people? It's really a lot, it can fill up two buses!😂

[Melrose]

Can't even stand there with a sign ? Pretty insecure

[Wolf-ywen]

100 arrests across 23 cities across Russia. That’s approximately 4 per city. Such numbers. Such dissent. 😂

[hesatrap]

He is still very popular!! Just look at the support he gets from the far right in the US. It will take time for this to change unfortunately...

[Cantab]

When did Russia ever had democracy and freedom? Czar, Soviet, Putin ..😅 ?

[CyberBeep_kenshi]

When you watch the street interviews on 1420, the majority doesn't seem to care about anything. Though most seem too scared to say anything. A small amount reacts openly pro war / racist. And an even smaller group are brave enough to criticise moscow. Most are young.

Its a good channel, though

The trick will be to get through the passive majority.