What Will 'Putin 4.0' Look Like?

To mark today's centenary of Lithuania's declaration of independence, here's a contribution from Vilius Ivanauskas -- senior analyst for the Eastern Europe Studies Center and a senior researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History -- to the Lithuanian English-language news site Delfi.lt.

There is a clear denunciation of Russia's election:

The upcoming presidential elections in Russia are not real elections. This farcical ritual of ensuring the continuity and legitimacy of Vladimir Putin's rule helps to portray Putin as essential to ensuring the country's stability. However, the government has the basic tools (control of the media, electoral system, "administrative resources," and so on) to ensure Putin's continued popularity while assuring itself a veneer of legitimacy—in which the security services play a disproportionate role. In 2012-2014, public support for Putin actually fell, and anti-Putin forces represented a serious challenge to the president. However, Putin's popularity soared after Russia's actions in Ukraine in 2014.

Ivanauskas goes on to describe how Putinism has sought to further a narrative of a "Russia no longer on its knees." He adds:

One of the biggest remaining questions is whether Russia will be capable of wider re-engagement with the domestic public and of effectively implementing a programme of economic modernization during Putin's fourth term. The latter is especially significant, given that experts believe that economic reforms are needed if the country is to avoid entering a recession in the next few years[10]. Unfortunately, according to the current consensus, the Putin-Medvedev tandem is at best capable of implementing only partial reforms.

And going forward, he cites a likely power struggle, concluding:

Uncertainty about the succession process is adding so much stress to power networks that we may see a return to real negotiations and meaningful politics to the Russian political stage during the Putin 4.0 era. At the very least, we should soon see mafia-style power clans begin identifying some potential candidates for Putin to evaluate personally.

BREAKING NEWS: Court Dismisses Sobchak Complaint

Our Russian Service reports from the courtroom that the Supreme Court has rejected Sobchak's challenge of Putin's candidacy, which was based on his previous terms as president in light of the Russian Constitution's term limit.

It's a debate that has simmered ever since Putin announced his intention to return to the Kremlin for a third term in 2012.

The latest from Power Vertical's Brian Whitmore.

Putinism With Human Faces

One opposition candidate for the Russian presidency spent last week campaigning -- in the United States -- with a message that often sounded suspiciously like the Kremlin's.

Another traveled to the United Kingdom to persuade exiled businessmen to return to Russia with their assets, a longtime goal of Vladimir Putin's.

And yet another hinted about being open to taking a job as a Kremlin adviser after the election.

With opponents like these, who needs allies?

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Expat Chichvarkin: Voters Are 'Accomplices' To 'Pseudo-Election'

Current Time TV talked to one of the better-known Russian millionaires in London about the election.

Yevgeny Chichvarkin founded Russia's largest mobile-phone retailer, Euroset, before leaving Russia following a number of seemingly dubious interventions by authorities targeting his business. He is an open opposition, and indeed Navalny, supporter.

On Navalny:

"The only electable candidate who is independent of the Kremlin."

On "dignity":

"People worked for the bandit state of the Soviet Union; people then worked for the irresponsible Russian state; now people are working for the Russian gangster state under Putin."

And on the Russian election and election day:

"We'll have a big gathering in front of the [Russian] embassy [in London]. We'll throw rotten eggs. We've already put the eggs near the stove; they'll be rotten by now. Eggs, tomatoes. We'll throw rotten tomatoes and eggs, and heap shame on all those who come to vote in these pseudo-elections, because they are all accomplices."

Here's the video, in Russian:

Photo Contest To Boost Turnout

Is there no end to the schemes being dreamed up to maximize turnout in the March 18 presidential election?

Many analysts have said the Kremlin fears low turnout could further undermine the appearance of legitimacy.

Now, a local Internet newspaper in Novgorod is sponsoring a photo competition encouraging people to submit selfies from polling stations under the hashtag #яживой (#ImAlive).

One Twitter comedian posted: "Photograph yourself at the polling station and boast that after 17 years of Putin's rule, you are still alive."

Brian Whitmore's Morning Vertical today on non-candidate Navalny looking like the only one "actually behaving like a candidate":

It appears that Aleksei Navalny has really touched a nerve with the video he released last week targeting Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko and Kremlin-connected oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

According to reports this morning, Internet providers in Russia have begun blocking access to opposition leader and anticorruption crusader Aleksei Navalny's website following an order from Roskomnadzor, the country's communications regulator.

Russian authorities are also threatening to block YouTube and Instagram for hosting the video.

It's just the latest example of how spooked the Kremlin is by Navalny. (In fact, some Moscow residents say the only way they can get officials to clear the snow in the Russian capital is to write Navalny's name on it.)

He's been barred from the ballot in Russia's so-called presidential election.

But even though he is a noncandidate officially, he is the only person who is actually behaving like a candidate.

Our Russian Service invited guests on its "Лицом к событию" TV program (in Russian) to speculate about why Sobchak appealed to the Supreme Court for a ruling on whether Putin should be prevented from running for reelection because he has already served three terms, two of them consecutive.

Not election news, strictly speaking. But trying to muzzle the organizer of an election boycott would seem to make it so.

Navalny Website Blocked In Russia Over 'Rybkagate' Report

By RFE/RL

Internet service providers in Russia have begun blocking access to opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's website following an order from the country's communications regulator, according to news reports and social-media posts by Navalny and others.

The development came after regulator Roskomnadzor told Navalny -- along with YouTube and Instagram -- that they must delete or block access to a video and photos in an online report about an alleged meeting between billionaire Oleg Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko, a longtime former senior adviser to President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny defied the order, which followed a court ruling that publication of the video and photos violated the privacy rights of Derispaska, who filed a lawsuit over the matter after Navalny posted the report on his website on February 8.

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'The Politicization Of Russian Youth'

Svetlana Erpyleva writes in the New Eastern Europe (paywall) about the generation that has grown up in Russia since 2010, arguing it is "no longer just Vladimir Putin's generation, but also the generation of Aleksei Navalny and YouTube."

Erpyleva asks whether the current generation of young Russians is "more radical than the previous one."

From our newsroom, citing Current Time TV, Dozhd TV, Meduza, and Reuters:

Internet providers in Russia have begun blocking access to opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's website following an order from the country's communications regulator, according to social media posts, news reports, and Navalny himself.