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Russian president Vladimir Putin urged Russians to get inoculated against Covid-19 in his annual state-of-the-nation speech as a crackdown took place on countrywide opposition protests demanding the release of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
“We need to form collective immunity by the autumn,” Mr Putin said on Wednesday. “I appeal to Russians – get vaccinated.” The Russian leader warned of demographic challenges facing the world’s largest nation by territory, where the population has been slow to take up the offer of a shot against Covid-19.
Mr Putin opened his speech saying he would focus on domestic issues and devoted much of the opening section to promises of higher incomes and improved government benefits for families.
The Russian leader remains broadly popular and Kremlin efforts to discredit and pressure the opposition have succeeded in blunting Navalny’s appeal, with polls showing nearly half of Russians say he was rightly imprisoned. However, the harsh tactics risk further alienating young Russians, the demographic most likely to support the anti-Putin movement, according to polls.
The speech came after police detained eight people in Russia’s far eastern city of Magadan on Wednesday, the Open Russia opposition group said on social media, as protests began across the country over Navalny’s deteriorating health in prison.
Several Navalny allies were detained on Wednesday morning including the opposition politician’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, and Lyubov Sobol, another close ally.
Ms Sobol was detained by uniformed officers in Moscow and her lawyer Vladimir Voronin said it was not clear where she was being taken.

Opposition figure Lyubov Sobol was detained by uniformed officers in Moscow on Wednesday. File photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty


The authorities have threatened a crackdown on the unsanctioned protests, the first called by the opposition since Navalny was sentenced to 2½ years in prison in February. More than 465,000 people have pledged anonymously to take part in demonstrations calling for his release.
“The authorities, with the approval of the majority among older generations, prefer to act by means of threats and punishments,” Denis Volkov, an analyst at the independent Levada Center polling agent, wrote this week. “This means, most likely, we may soon see new protests backed by young Russians.”
Navalny’s camp called the protest after warning that he was close to death in prison after three weeks on hunger strike, which he began to demand access to outside doctors. On Monday authorities announced they had transferred him to a prison hospital.
International relations
The United States and the European Union have warned that Russia will be held responsible if Navalny dies.
Lawmakers in Russia’s upper house of parliament will meet Friday to begin implementing measures announced in the president’s speech, which will have “special importance” this year, speaker Valentina Matviyenko told the state-run Tass news service on April 6th.
The president has used the address in the past to boast of Russia’s military might and to paint a rosy picture of the country’s domestic achievements despite incomes that have stagnated for nearly a decade.
Last year, Mr Putin announced plans to change the constitution, ultimately allowing him to remain president until 2036, in a move that led to new measures to boost state control over the population.
The address comes amid the recent deterioration in relations with the West, which the Kremlin has said are at a historic low. The US and the EU have expressed alarm over Russia’s unprecedented military build-up on its border with Ukraine, while Washington issued a new round of sanctions this month that target sovereign debt over hacking and election meddling allegations that the Kremlin denies.
Russia also expelled Czech and Bulgarian diplomats this week in tit-for-tat moves after spying scandals in the two countries with traditionally warm relations with Moscow.
Extremist organisations
The protests will be a test of the opposition movement’s viability after many of its leaders were arrested or fled abroad when the authorities moved to crush rallies against Navalny’s detention and trial earlier this year.
Russian prosecutors this month asked a Moscow court to declare Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and his campaign offices as extremist organisations, which could subject staff and volunteers to criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
A Levada survey in March showed efforts to discredit Navalny have worked, with 48 per cent of people saying his sentence was fair compared with 29 per cent who believe it wasn’t.
Authorities have warned people to stay away from the gatherings and threatened to fine social media companies for carrying posts promoting the events. They have cast a broad net to stifle criticism, raiding an online student magazine earlier this month that portrayed the protests sympathetically.
“The opposition wasn’t prepared for the extent of the crackdown earlier this year, and they don’t have a strategy,” Konstantin Sonin, a Russian economist at the University of Chicago, said. “Ultimately they will have a choice: exile or arrest.” – Reuters, Bloomberg