RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to downplay the size of protests that saw thousands arrested at the weekend won’t wash, the country’s communist youth league said today.

The Komsomol said the rallies were “undoubtedly the largest since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the de-facto banning of all opposition events.”

Mr Putin’s spokesman claimed on Sunday that only “a few” people had turned out to the protests, which were called by anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny following his arrest on his return to Russia from hospital treatment in Berlin for apparent Novichok poisoning. Russia has dismissed complaints from the EU and United States over the arrests.

But the Komsomol said that “not only supporters of the arrested blogger but thousands of citizens with completely different views” took part. 

The “rhetoric of the participants” in many cities showed popular “outrage at the declining standard of living, rising prices for housing and public transport, the healthcare crisis and the lack of proper support in a pandemic” were major motivations, it said. The protests were a call for “socio-economic and political change” — but had been met by the state with “truncheons and the open doors of police vehicles.”

Feted in the West, Mr Navalny is a controversial figure in Russia whose Islamophobic rhetoric — he has referred to Muslims as “cockroaches” and described the lives of women in the Caucasus as being “wrapped up in a burqa and having 25 children” — and support for an annual nationalistic “Russian march” on November 4 that attracts a range of far-right groups under slogans including “Russia for the Russians” and “Migrants today, occupiers tomorrow” place him on the right of the political spectrum.

The Komsomol statement noted that the demands of the protesters do not align with Mr Navalny’s own policies, as “in his speeches you will not find a word about nationalisation, or the creation of a system of free healthcare and education.”

But the Russian state had helped make him a martyr by “detention and trial in a police station under a portrait of [Stalin-era police chief] Genrikh Yagoda,” which “looked ridiculous, like the actions of the villain in a theatrical production.

“Their unconvincing attempts to justify themselves and blame everything on the intrigues of Western special forces” would only feed further protest, it said.