With thuggy looking security people watching our every move, our crew was among those at Vnukovo airport for Alexei Navalny’s arrival. Of course, he never did land at our airport as his plane was diverted to Sheremetyevo where he was promptly arrested. Navalny has mobilized vast crowds of protestors in the past and appeared on the precipice of fundamentally changing Russia – only to have the wave recede without much to show for it.
With his poisoning, and dramatic return, and now a “Mandela” political prisoner status (at least for many in the west) does it signal a political sea change in Russia ? Very hard to predict. Russians tend to be indifferent to politics – and content enough with things as they are as many have obviously lived through far worse. Young people feel differently however, and that is who Navalny is counting on to lead the anti-Putin challenge. He is clearly playing the long game in his effort to change Russia – but it now appears he will have to do from the inside of a jail cell.