Moscow Protests Are Getting More Dangerous – for Putin

On Saturday, the Russian opposition held the biggest rally Moscow has seen since 2012: According to White Counter, a group that makes it its business to count participants at such events, between 50,000 and 60,000 people turned out. That, however, is still a far cry from gaining the support of the silent majority in a city of more than 12 million, the way protesters appear to have done in Hong Kong. The Kremlin’s version of events for that silent majority is that the protests are instigated from abroad.

The current wave began last month, when anti-regime candidates were illegally excluded from a Moscow City Council election scheduled for Sept. 8. Since few people care about the largely powerless city legislature, the initial rallies attracted only a few thousand people when they weren’t permitted by the authorities; an officially sanctioned rally on July 20 drew 22,500 people. The official permission makes a difference: It’s safe to attend a sanctioned event. By contrast, the Kremlin and the city authorities chose to suppress unauthorized protests with brute force, using thousands of riot police in full gear, and on July 27, a post-Soviet record was set with more than 1,300 people detained in Moscow.