"A true leader is someone who refuses to sell out an idea and the people for an office with a break room."

— Can we say that under Medvedev, the outcome of protest actions became qualitatively different? In other words, before, mass rallies against a governor usually suggested that Putin would not remove the governor, so that no one would think he was bowing to pressure. But now Boos has been removed, and the highway through Khimki Forest has been halted. Has something really changed, or does it just seem that way? — Medvedev has nothing to do with it—he is a byproduct of Putin’s system of power. And Putin’s power is based not on some mythical siloviki (security-service elites; essentially businessmen in uniform and peaked caps), but on Putin’s real approval rating. He is the most popular politician in Russia today, and he will remain so for the near future even in hypothetical fair elections with a free media. That is the foundation of the government’s legitimacy. But whereas a few years ago Putin was the most popular politician with a 70% approval rating and almost no negative rating, now he is the most popular politician with a 45% approval rating and a negative rating that is rising even faster. “Closed” polling with large samples, which I have been able to review and which there is no reason to distrust, shows exactly this picture. So in the first case, you can break up a rally both in Kaliningrad and in Moscow. In the second, you still break up a rally in Moscow, but when it comes to Kaliningrad, you have to think twice. Declining political legitimacy pushes the authorities toward compromise. The same is true of Khimki Forest: it became clear that direct confrontation only fuels the negative rating, and raw authority alone will not carry the day. So they chose a more costly, tedious, but subtler mechanism of struggle—delays, empty talk, and so on. As I understand it, no one is seriously considering rerouting the highway right now. If the rating drops to forty, they will start considering it. — Is it true that in today’s Russia, only apolitical protest aimed at purely practical goals—motorists, environmentalists, and the like—can become truly mass and effective? If that is a myth, who benefits from it? — That is a profound misconception, but more often than not it is a sensible tactic used by protest organizers who do not want unpopular and pointless figures from the political opposition latching onto them—people who bring nothing except their own negative ratings. So they are politely told: sorry, but this is a non-political event, please take down your flags and leave the stage. And of course, it is hard to blame anyone for that. But the fact is that protest aimed at practical goals produces results only when ignoring it threatens obvious political consequences. There are no exceptions: Kondopoga, Kaliningrad, Mezhdurechensk, Khimki—this is all politics. As the faces of the “opposition movement” change, normal civic activists will become less and less skittish about politics. The fairly successful recent action by “Democratic Choice,” when “ordinary people” rather than the usual political crowd came to the rally, confirms this. The protest movement is growing in step with the authorities’ inability to solve the country’s most important everyday problems—from the lack of hot water in Ryazan for several months to the Caucasus, where several police officers are killed every day. — Can striking figures emerging in the protest movement—people like Doroshok from Kaliningrad or Chirikova, the defender of Khimki Forest—grow into real political leaders? — And who exactly are these “real political leaders”? Is a “real leader” certificate issued only to someone who has served in the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, the State Duma, or the government? Is someone licensed as a “real leader” only if at some point they become part of the nomenklatura (the Soviet-style ruling establishment)? I do not think so. A leader is someone who believes in an idea and inspires others with it. And he becomes a “real leader” after he refuses to sell out that idea and those people in exchange for an office with a private lounge. — Can protest movements become a tool in the Kremlin’s internal power struggles? If so, is that good or bad? — They can. It may be a rather ugly manifestation of political competition, but it is still a manifestation of political competition. That is a good thing.