"Some Members Of The Russian Security Forces Will Try To Undermine Putin"
- 13.08.2026, 9:19
An expert identified the key condition.
Protests in Russia following the court’s ruling regarding the Yabloko party will not subside, but a mass nationwide movement is not likely to emerge anytime soon.
This was stated in an interview "Glavred"Ivan Preobrazhensky, a political scientist and expert on Central and Eastern Europe. According to him, the next stage in this legal saga will be the appeal, and it is precisely this that will bring people back out onto the streets—albeit under much harsher conditions than before.
“First and foremost, there will be an appeal. This will serve as yet another reason, at the very least, to gather and protest. Most likely, the appeal will look completely different. There will be ten cordons of police; there will be those they call ‘cosmonauts’—wearing helmets, carrying shields, and wielding rubber batons. They won’t let people gather,” Preobrazhensky noted.
Has Russian Society Awakened?
The key question, according to the political scientist, is not the fate of the party itself, but whether a process of social awakening has begun in Russia. In his view, it is still too early to say.
“The question is whether a process of social awakening has begun… It is completely irrelevant what will happen to the Yabloko party itself.” What matters is whether society has begun, so to speak, to awaken. I think the period was too short for that to have happened. Perhaps new social groups and social networks have emerged that will form the basis for future protests. But so far, that’s all,” Preobrazhensky believes.
Under what conditions will large-scale protests begin
The expert identified the stance of the ruling class and law enforcement agencies as the main factor capable of turning local actions into a large-scale movement.
“There won’t be any large-scale nationwide protests unless there is support from the ruling class—let’s be blunt—or unless some members of the Russian security forces, driven by their own, most likely purely self-serving interests, attempt to destabilize the situation,” the political analyst concluded.