Russia’s Perm Becomes Another Target Of Destabilization Attempts

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On May 29^th, a round of protests seized by representatives of the so-called “non-system opposition” took place in the Russian city of Perm.

HINT: Russia’s non-system opposition is a part of the opposition that publicly rejects cooperation with the government, in the framework of the existing legal base. Its main goal is to overthrow the current government and seize power using any methods, including unconstitutional ones.

The protests were focusing on a quite the large variety of problems, including the church construction in Yekaterinburg, subsidies, trash collection, school issues and even the poor implementation of Putin’s “May Decrees.” Summing up, the protest was designed to show that the population was unhappy with actions of the government.

It goes without saying that a protest that covers almost every gripe that the population has will attract many followers, but understandably it will also attract a fair share of suspicion.

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A broader agenda behind the recent protests can be seen, which becomes even more apparent following “the meeting of angry Perm residents” is the latest dry-run of a future “pro-democracy” protests, which non-system opposition would like to hold in Moscow.

Obviously, a protest that expresses fury at more or less every decision of the officials currently in power, but doesn’t focus on something particular, is aimed at solving no issues at all. The possible objective is to gather energy and momentum, so that a destructive force can be accumulated and then potentially moved to Moscow.

One of the organizers of the unsanctioned protests was Mikhail Kasimov, known for his pathological hatred of Putin and the “bloody regime”. He frequently makes harsh statements and even outright insults the country and its leadership. This individual presumably fights for the implementation of Putin’s “May decrees.”

Another ‘protests leader’ was the former politician Konstantin Okunev, who has previously asserted that 50% of the population thinks with their gastrointestinal tract. However, now, he attempted to show that he is concerned with people’s social situation.

The same can be said about each of the organizers of this protest, and all of the protests leading up to May 29^th were organized by the same people, whose faces are known. They hold rallies regularly, who have little difference apart from the requests.

To put it plainly, the past of the organizers and the things they appear to be fighting in some cases are in a clear contradiction.

The director of the Grani Center, Svetlana Makovetskaya, who was present at the rally, along with her husband, Chairman of the Perm Civil Chamber, Igor Averkiyev. They hosted the American Consul a few years back. Former deputy of the local assembly Konstantin Okunev was listed as one of the organizers.

Yuri Bobrov, an associate of well-known ‘non-system politician’ Alexei Navalny, was also present. Bobrov’s speech included ‘impromptu elections’ for a council of “angry Perm residents.” More precisely, not an election, but an appointment: the speaker listed the names that he would like to see in the “council.” The “surprise” was that the people named to be part of the council were the same organizers of the previous protests.

In conclusion, the oppositionists spoke against all of the people’s issues, chose themselves to be part of the council of “angry Perm residents” and ended by shouting “Shame to the authorities,” just to show how strongly against the system they were.

“In this regard, we declare no confidence in the governor and government of the region, deputies of the legislative assembly and the city duma of Perm,” the resolution reached during the protest said.

The scenario and leaders of the rally demonstrated that the main goal of the event was not the fight for the rights of shareholders, mothers of children and so on. Possibly, it was to attract a kind of “investment” from forces that systematically back non-system opposition and other destructive tendencies in Russia.

As it was noted above, a similar situation is now observed in Yekaterinburg, where marginal anti-government influence groups also seized protests over local issues.

Meanwhile, the “liberal” part of the Russian elite is undertaking actions that are often aimed at underlying the Russian authorities and state and go directly against their interests.

Besides this, there are indications that reports that are to be presented to the top leadership are being skewed and the information presented in them is biased or presents straight false information.

For example, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center changed the method of measuring politician’s ratings. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confidence rating went up from 31.7% to 72.3%.

“Now we are directly interested in the respondents, whether they trust the leaders of domestic politics or not by naming specific names and surnames,” the head of the center Valery Fedorov said.

There are doubts that this change was made without a specific agenda.

Representatives of the “liberal” part of the elite attempt to promote projects, which are barely linked to the interests of the state.

On May 30^th, the head of Sberbank German Gref suggested to Vladimir Putin to endow Moscow with a special status which would allow for the introduction and development of artificial intelligence systems in the city. Gref claimed such a practice would allow other regions to make great progress and at the same time save large sums. In the event of the implementation of this project, this will lead to the growth of administrative and social division between the capital and regions.

This comes amid the massive corruption scandals in Roscosmos, which for years has mismanaged billions of rubles. Some of these scandals became a logical result of “miraculous management decisions” as well as inexplicable court decisions.

At the same time, many Russian sources note that the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted various state and state-linked institutions, in Russia demonstrates that the top’s country leadership understands the current challenges and work to deal with them.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Billion Rubles Violations Discovered In Roscosmos In 2018 Actually Lower Than 2017’s 800 Billion
• Managing Russia’s dissolution: Truth or Desire?

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