Alexei Navalny’s 2016–2018 presidential campaign became the largest and most dynamic political movement in modern Russian history. It was an independent, genuinely nationwide campaign, built not on state resources or television propaganda, but on the energy of tens of thousands of volunteers. Navalny created a network of campaign headquarters across the country, released major anti-corruption investigations, held hundreds of meetings with voters, and organized some of the largest public protests seen in Russia in decades. Despite constant pressure from the authorities, repeated arrests, and the unlawful refusal to allow him onto the ballot, the campaign became a school of civic participation for an entire generation.
Launching the Campaign
On December 13, 2016, Alexei Navalny officially announced that he would run in the 2018 presidential election. He released a video titled “I’m Running for President” on his YouTube channel. In the address, Navalny spoke about corruption, inequality, and the need for political change in Russia. He also outlined the core ideas of his future platform: fighting poverty, reforming the economy, and holding free and fair elections.
The very next day, the campaign website 2018.navalny.com went live. It became the central hub of the campaign — publishing the program, recruiting volunteers, fundraising, and documenting every stage of the movement, from donation reports to rally announcements and regional tours.
The First Navalny Headquarters
In February and March 2017, Navalny began opening regional campaign headquarters across Russia — first in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, then in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, and dozens of other cities.
The network expanded rapidly. By the autumn of 2017, Navalny had opened more than 80 headquarters across Russia, stretching from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.
Each headquarters quickly became much more than a campaign office. They turned into gathering places for activists and volunteers — spaces where people attended lectures, organized events, trained election observers, and met others who wanted political change. For the first time in modern Russian history, a nationwide political campaign was being built from the ground up by ordinary citizens.
I believe the current system of federalism in Russia is completely fake. It is called ‘federalism,’ there are regions, there are regional heads — but in reality they have no real powers. Federalism means having the right to influence what happens around you, and that’s a right I want to return to people. People should elect their own mayors. They should elect their own governors. That’s fundamental. No municipal filters, none of this absurd situation where not a single major city in Russia elects its own mayor anymore. Those are the things we need to bring back.
Alexei Navalnyinterview after the opening of the Kazan headquarters
He Is Not Dimon to You and the March 26 , 2017 Protests
On March 2, 2017, FBK released the investigation “Don’t call him dimon, exposing the hidden wealth and property empire connected to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The film quickly went viral, reaching tens of millions of viewers within weeks. One of the details featured in the investigation — a small house for ducks located on a lake inside Medvedev’s estate — unexpectedly turned a yellow rubber duck into a symbol of protest.
The investigation became a turning point for the campaign. After its release, thousands of new volunteers joined Navalny’s movement. Navalny called for nationwide anti-corruption protests on March 26, 2017. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Russia — from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Vladivostok and Makhachkala. These demonstrations became the largest unsanctioned protests Russia had seen in years.
In Moscow, demonstrators gathered on Tverskaya Street. Navalny himself was detained on his way to the protest and sentenced to 15 days in jail.
The investigation and the protests had an enormous political impact. A month later, Medvedev responded publicly with a rambling statement that quickly became a meme.
They take all sorts of nonsense and garbage, collect things supposedly connected to me, my acquaintances, people I’ve never even heard of, places I’ve supposedly visited and places I’ve never heard of either, gather documents, photographs, clothing, and then package it all into some kind of product.
Dmitry Medvedevsubject of the investigation
The authorities responded to Navalny’s growing campaign with escalating pressure. In April 2017, he was attacked in Moscow when a pro-Kremlin activist threw green antiseptic dye in his face, severely damaging his eye.
Despite the injury, Navalny appeared that same evening on Navalny LIVE. It was only the show’s second broadcast, but it soon became a weekly program watched by millions.
Russia Day and the Rise of a Nationwide Movement
After Medvedev’s dismissive response to the investigation, Navalny announced another nationwide protest for June 12 — Russia Day.
Protests took place in dozens of Russian cities. In Moscow, authorities had initially approved a rally on Sakharov Avenue, but Navalny urged supporters instead to gather on Tverskaya Street, where the city’s official celebrations were taking place.
By the summer of 2017, it had become clear that the authorities were prepared to suppress protests, but they could no longer stop the campaign itself. Around “Navalny 2018,” something unprecedented in modern Russia had emerged: a real nationwide volunteer movement.
Through the campaign website and social media, tens of thousands of people joined the movement. Coordinators trained volunteers how to campaign in the streets, speak with voters, and explain why political change mattered.
The summer also brought new attacks. Volunteers were detained for distributing leaflets, offices were shut down under fabricated fire safety violations, and activists were assaulted by unidentified attackers.
But the more pressure the authorities applied, the stronger solidarity inside the movement became.
Putin’s Birthday Protests and the Signature Campaign
In September, the campaign began organizing another nationwide protest timed for Vladimir Putin’s birthday on October 7. On September 29, Navalny was detained in Moscow and sentenced to 20 days in jail for “repeated calls to participate in unauthorized demonstrations.”
Despite arrests and pressure from authorities, protests took place across the country on October 7, demanding free elections and Navalny’s inclusion on the ballot.
To officially register as a presidential candidate, Navalny was required to collect at least 300,000 valid signatures from citizens across Russia. The deadline was extremely tight: just over one month, from December 27, 2017 to January 31, 2018. By then, the campaign’s network of more than 80 headquarters had created an infrastructure for signature collection unlike anything Russia had seen before. As early as spring 2017, more than 300,000 people had already registered on the campaign website expressing their willingness to sign in support of Navalny. He responded by launching the “+1” campaign, encouraging every supporter to bring one more person into the movement.
By December, the number of registered supporters had exceeded 700,000. Campaign offices developed systems for scanning passports and verifying signatures in multiple stages to minimize invalid submissions. Thousands of volunteers prepared to participate. Long lines formed outside headquarters across the country as people waited to sign in support of Navalny.
Nomination and the Refusal to Register Him
The formal nomination procedure took place in Moscow on December 24, 2017. But across Russia, supporters in more than twenty cities organized parallel public gatherings to symbolically nominate Navalny themselves.
That same day, the campaign submitted its documents to the Central Election Commission. Navalny personally delivered them to the commission’s office.
The following day, the commission held its official session. The decision took only minutes: unanimously, the commission refused to register Alexei Navalny as a presidential candidate.
The Voters’ Strike
That evening, Navalny released a video statement on YouTube and social media declaring the upcoming election a sham and announcing the launch of the “Voters’ Strike.”
Vladimir Putin is deeply afraid — afraid of competition with me, and he sees that competition as a threat. The procedure they are asking us to take part in is not an election. The only people participating are Putin and the candidates he personally selected. Our Voters’ Strike means: 1) We transform our headquarters into headquarters for the strike. 2) We do not sit idle. We organize monitoring and oversight of turnout, because the Kremlin’s main task now will be falsifying participation numbers. 3) We campaign against these fake elections and against participation in them.
Alexei NavalnyAnnouncing the Voters’ Strike
Headquarters across the country began distributing newspapers and leaflets explaining the boycott campaign, producing videos, and livestreaming events. The campaign culminated in nationwide protests on January 28, 2018, held in more than 100 Russian cities. Navalny was detained during the protest and spent several days in jail.
During the livestream coverage on Navalny LIVE, security forces broke into the studio using an angle grinder to cut through the door and detained the presenters live on air.
Despite the crackdown, the protests drew thousands of people nationwide.
A Campaign That Changed Russia
The March 18, 2018 “election” was not a genuine election, but a controlled reappointment process. Putin, officially credited with 76% of the vote, faced no real competition. The approved candidates allowed onto the ballot posed no challenge to him.
Alexei Navalny was ultimately barred from participating, but the campaign itself changed Russia. It created a nationwide political infrastructure: more than 80 regional headquarters, thousands of volunteers, a massive grassroots fundraising system, and the country’s largest independent political media network on YouTube.
The campaign brought tens of thousands of people back into the streets. The protests on March 26, June 12, October 7, and January 28 demonstrated that political protest was possible not only in Moscow, but across dozens of regions throughout the country. For a new generation of Russians, it was the first time they had experienced real political participation — speaking openly against corruption and demanding fair elections despite growing state repression. Navalny’s headquarters continued operating until April 2021, when the Russian authorities outlawed the movement as an “extremist organization.”