I listened to the latest Navalny today, and I am very glad. By all appearances, he does intend to remain abroad, because it is much more convenient for him to throw a wrench in the regime’s works from there. Here he has the GDR archives, or wherever he is digging through the excavations of Putin’s German past. Here he has a Bulgarian colleague from Bellingcat. Here he has quick access to the EU establishment. As for the fieldwork in Russia, there are people to handle that. So, Alexei will live on.

For those who, for some reason, are still not aware of what this is about: Navalny pulled off a cool prank. Almost immediately after publishing his video investigation into the poisoning, he started calling the subjects of the investigation, introducing himself as an advisor to the Secretary of the Security Council and shaking them down for materials for a briefing note addressed to the first person. Only one operative fell for the trick, but what was heard perfectly complements the investigation materials, and now Navalny’s evidence is becoming absolutely ironclad.

Now we should expect obvious movement at the international level. If it is possible to file a lawsuit in one international court or another—good. If we have to settle for some situationally issued sanctions against Putin—well, that will also do. But it is far more interesting to watch the reaction in Russia.

To be more specific, I am talking about dormant institutions. During the transformation of hybrid regimes, they have a tendency to wake up and suddenly start working; there is a chance that this will happen in our case as well. We have already seen an appeal from several Tomsk municipal deputies demanding the opening of a criminal case regarding the poisoning. They were joined by colleagues from several other regions. But our state has too many nannies, which is why it’s always running around like a blind foal. So, besides a deputy’s appeal to the Investigative Committee, one could imagine the possibility of raising the issue of a parliamentary investigation at the State Duma level, some movements from the prosecutor’s office, or finally, an impeachment attempt. Of course, this will not get the support of the majority, but the news hook is loud, and there will surely be public politicians who find it possible to use this for PR.

It seems to me that a flash mob involving writing letters to one’s deputies, as well as to the heads of Duma factions, could work well right now. Something along the lines of: “I have received information from open sources regarding the illegal activities of the FSB. The explanations given by the president during the press conference are clearly insufficient. Could you initiate a parliamentary investigation into this matter, which has already gained significant international resonance and therefore should not be hushed up in the State Duma.”

I won’t provide precise wording; I am not very competent in that. I hope Ekaterina Mikhailovna will formulate a plan of action more clearly in her program tomorrow, with a specific link on where to search and where to write. Something in the final days of 2020 has triggered such a flurry of activity that I’ve completely rebranded myself as a political scientist—ugh, I shouldn’t do that, that’s not why you read me. But it’s also impossible not to share this funny prank, please bear with me)