What is Russian President Vladimir Putin afraid of?

Judging by all the outward appearances, the permanence of the power of Vladimir Poutine It seems safe.

His party won the 2018 elections with 77% of the vote. He consolidated his control of the national media. Most of his rivals are dead or live in exile. Now he can deploy the richest oligarchs in his country to fill the Kremlin program, as he did after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 US elections.

So why is the Russian president so scared?

One would think that an autocrat who would manipulate the political rules of his country to cling to power would not be afraid of dissent. Authorizing a nominal opposition could even have benefits, such as easing the economic pressure exerted by the United States. and his allies in the west and make their henchmen spend their fortunes.

However, Putin is still afraid of dissent. Consider a report published this week by a commission demanding the release of political prisoners from the Kremlin. Comprised of a dozen Western and Russian NGOs, the group discovered that on March 25 the country's prisons were home to 236 political prisoners. The figure is five times higher than that observed in 2015, while the total was only 46.

At a press conference held Monday, the opposition leader in exile Vladimir Kara-Murza He offered even more perspective on this figure. When the famous physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, he badured that the Soviet Union maintained 176 prisoners of conscience. It is extraordinary to think that currently, Nearly 30 years after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Russia records a third more.

Current Russian political prisoners include journalists, activists and lawyers. Some are falsely accused of committing serious crimes such as murder and embezzlement. Others are jailed for their tweets.

In November 2017, for example, Yan Sidorov and Vladislav Mordasov they were arrested for attempting to organize a demonstration against his government Since then, the report states that Mordasov was the subject of multiple shots. There is also the case of Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian filmmaker and critic of the annexation of Crimea by Russia. He was sentenced to prison for allegedly planning terrorist attacks and belonged to a Ukrainian nationalist group, which the same organization denied. He confessed to having committed these crimes after being tortured, according to several human rights groups.

Natalia Arno, president of the Free Russia Foundation (which is part of the coalition behind the report), told the media this week that the increase in the number of political prisoners raised questions not only about the Russian state, but also on its head. "What is Vladimir Putin afraid of?"he asked. It is an issue that governments seeking to counter the Russian aggression might well resolve. Putin can project strength and daring, but he does not trust his people enough to let him listen to his critics.