MOSCOW (RUSSIA) – Supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny plan to conduct candle-lit gatherings in residential courtyards across Russia on Sunday in spite of warnings that it could get them arrested.
Navalny’s allies have announced a moratorium on street rallies until the spring after police detained large number of people at protests.
In order to express solidarity with Navalny, they have asked supporters to gather outside their homes for 15 minutes on Valentine’s Day evening, switching their mobile phone torches on and arranging candles in the shape of a heart.
Leonid Volkov, one of Navalny’s close allies, wrote on Twitter when calling on people to gather, “(President Vladimir) Putin is fear. Navalny is love. That’s why we will win.”
Volkov, who is based in Lithuania, is one among several Navalny allies now abroad or is currently under house arrest in Russia.
He urged people to post pictures of Sunday’s gatherings on social media, a new venture for the opposition that is similar to political actions in neighbouring Belarus, using the hashtag #loveisstrongerthanfear in Russian.
Another activist has called on women to create a human chain on a pedestrian street in Moscow on Sunday afternoon backing Navalny’s wife Yulia, who according to media reports flew to Germany this week, and other women, who had to bear the brunt of the police crackdown against protesters.
Putin had earlier refused to call Navalny by name, referring to him as “the defendant”.
“This defendant is being used just as people’s fatigue is emerging all over the world, including in our country,” he said.
“Irritation has piled up, people have become disgruntled including by their living conditions, by the level of income.”
He argued that Navalny was in effect a means to vent out anger towards the authorities over the pandemic,
“Be it pandemic or not pandemic. Who is to blame? The authorities. But that’s the fate of the authorities.”