GUIDANCE

What the Protests in Russia Could Mean for the Kremlin

Aug 1, 2019 | 21:45 GMT

How the Kremlin chooses to acknowledge or suppress Russia’s upcoming regional elections will be key to watch as a sign of how threatened it feels by the latest wave of opposition protests.

Russia's opposition staged protests in Moscow on July 27 over the barring of independent candidates from upcoming local elections in September. Nearly 1,400 demonstrators were detained as a result of the demonstrations.

(VALERI SHARIFULIN/TASS via Getty Images)

The Russian government's decision to exclude several independent candidates from upcoming local elections has resulted in a recent wave of protests in Moscow. In its 2019 Third-Quarter Forecast, Stratfor noted that the Kremlin would successfully contain such demonstrations by deploying its usual mixture of security crackdowns and concessions. But the true impact of the demonstrations will hinge less on their activity in the streets and more on their ability to produce a sizable loss for Moscow and its political proxies in the voting booth come September. Such an outcome, however, will largely depend on three key developments in the week ahead, including whether the protests grow in scope and how Moscow’s decides to react....

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