Tatyana Stanovaya: the authorities turned Navalny into a problem without a solution

Political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya discusses on the website of the Carnegie Moscow Center who could actually attempt on the life of Alexey Navalny, since there is no doubt that they tried to poison him. The details of the poisoning will be revealed for a very long time, but this event itself speaks of the erosion of the Russian power resource, which is so tangible that the attackers are no longer even shy about their means.

Navalny remains the most important person in the opposition movement, even if he is deprived of the opportunity to engage in politics legally and in fact is not an electoral problem for the authorities. Moreover, his shortcomings, such as autocracy and intolerance towards opponents, greatly reduce the rating of trust in him, which is in the region of 2-4%. Only 9% of respondents approve of his activities, and 25% do not approve. But he succeeded with his idea of "smart voting" in the Moscow City Duma elections last year: his support for opposition candidates unexpectedly allowed some of them to enter the body.

True, Navalny's non-systemic nature turns into the fact that he is deprived of access to law enforcement mechanisms and has no right to count on justice, and even more so to investigate this poisoning - the regime will simply ignore him. Putin never calls him by name, which finally put Navalny in a very dangerous situation: you can throw as many stones at him as you want, and not risk anything at the same time...

But Navalny's non-systemic nature is still an important part of politics, since his investigations, in one way or another, change the intra-government alignments and impose their agenda on the authorities, giving incentives to the protest movement.

Its poisoners can be roughly divided into two groups. In one there will be the heroes of Navalny's investigations, thirsting for revenge, in the other - volunteers willing to help the regime. By the way, the fact that in 2015 another critic of Putinism, Nemtsov, was shot, makes one think that someone is trying to satisfy the regime's demand for "security services". The creation of a market for such services is a very dangerous trend for the authorities, since it means that there is an opinion that the regime is unable to eliminate threats and risks on its own. Who clearly thinks, killing Nemtsov or poisoning Navalny, that the FSB is not doing its job, and the vertical is inactive.

So the state's monopoly on violence is being eroded, even though the FSB does not take its eyes off Navalny and his family. The informal guards of the regime are acting more and more boldly, and the very fact of such a daring poisoning suggests that his customer is so close to the authorities that the means that are included in the arsenal of the special services are available to him. This means that the immune system of Putinism has begun to malfunction and requires artificial intervention for its stability.

By removing Navalny from the system, the regime pushed him into a legal vacuum, thereby entrusting him to be torn apart by radical guardians who were not picky in means. By not recognizing him as a politician, the authorities turned Navalny into a problem without a solution, thereby provoking to neutralize him in some radical way.

While numerous Kremlin clans are fighting for priority in stabilizing and preserving the regime, the non-systemic opposition turns out to be the easiest target, which puts its members in an extremely dangerous situation, forcing them to emigrate...