DISINFO: Foreign instructors of Navanly team were dissatisfied with disruption of protests in Russia
SUMMARY
During an online conference in the Polish embassy foreign instructors of Navalny’s team express their dissatisfaction with the announcement of [Leonid] Volkov about ceasing the protests. And demand to continue protests in any form, as not to lower the emotional impact.
[The same technology of] holding up flaslights were used in Minsk […], the flashlights were used in front of the Parliament building in Bishkek, bright lights were used two years ago in Hong Kong, and seven years ago in Maidan.
[…]
Gene Sharp’s book written almost half-a-century ago remains relevant to provocateurs all over the world, trying to instigate regime change.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about protests in Russia casting them as a "colour revolution" instigated from abroad. This claim also contains disinformation about Alexei Navalny and his collagues and smears political scientist Gene Sharp.
The disinformation message appeared in the context a video conference between Alexei Navalny's colleagues and the EU, US, UK, Canadian, Ukrainian diplomats, organized by the Poland's Permanent Representation to the EU, to discuss the recent developments in EU-Russia relations. The event was deliberately distorted by the Russian authorities, to portray it as a “NATO meeting”. See Polygraph and the Insider for further debunking.
To discredit the Russian opposition the pro-Kremlin media frequently accused it of being a "foreign agent". There is no basis for such claims.
Thousands of Russians took to the streets in January 2021, in support of arrested Alexei Navalny and in protests against government corruption. After a few weeks the street protests stopped as a result of violent crackdown and persuction of protesters. Detention of peaceful protesters and police brutality was condemned by the EU.
To avoid unprecedented police violence colleagues of Alexei Navalny, called on Russians to wave their phones outside their homes on February 14th, to express their support.
Gene Sharp was a political scientist, who founded an academic field of non-violent resistance. His books and his list of 198 methods of nonviolent action have been circulated by democracy groups in many of the world’s most repressive states. His basic theory is that power comes from the people and from institutions such as the police, army, media, business and religious groups that support a government; when the people and institutions of a country remove their support for a dictatorial government—without using violence—the dictatorship will fall. Academic research into non-violent resistance, no matter how popular, is not a proof of "orchestrated colour revolutions".