How Putin beat Russia’s nationalists at their own game Also, RFE/RL finds new evidence that the Kremlin lies about the president’s office work.

It’s Unity Day in Russia, when nationalists once staged some of the Putin era’s biggest recurring anti-Kremlin rallies

On November 4, Russians celebrated National Unity Day — marking more than four centuries since a popular uprising ended the Polish-Lithuanian occupation of Moscow. The holiday generally marks the end of the Time of Troubles, but really, it’s one of those dates on the calendar when offices and schools are closed and nobody is quite sure what to do. Nobody — except for Russian nationalists, at least once upon a time, from the mid-2000s until the annexation of Crimea in 2014. During the heady days of Dmitry Medvedev’s brief presidency, November 4 was the day of the Russian March — a parade of nationalist activists of many shapes and sizes. These marches became the largest recurring opposition rallies, apart from the 2011–2012 protests against parliamentary election fraud and Putin’s return to the presidency. Alexey Navalny famously attended Russian Marches from 2007 to 2011, before shifting from nationalist politics to a more benign populism focused on anti-corruption. 

For a retrospective on the Russian March and its place in the anti-Kremlin opposition’s history, Meduza journalist Andrey Pertsev interviewed three former participants: an acquaintance of the march organizers, a former Moscow municipal deputy, and Sergey Bespalov, the ex-coordinator of Alexey Navalny’s Irkutsk headquarters. 

You should know that all three sources agreed with the common view that Russia’s annexation of Crimea split the nationalist movement politically. According to Bespalov, the Kremlin hijacked even the word “Russian” itself, imbuing it with pro-government meaning. “It’s not even an imperialist point of view,” he complained, likening the Russian March’s appropriation to the way the state seized control of annual Immortal Regiment parades. This was no mere byproduct of the annexation, the sources argued — Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution showed the power of nationalist patriotism. In fact, despite the neutering of anti-Kremlin nationalism, the sources expressed confidence that the movement will survive when Putinism eventually collapses.

All three sources also noted that Russian March demonstrators knew they were being monitored by police. One source claimed that the Russian March was a “main allergen” for Vladislav Surkov, then the Kremlin’s domestic politics czar. “The crowd drew people across the spectrum — including a few with swastikas, some true believers, and others who, by all appearances, were planted by the security services or the Kremlin to stage the scene,” the source recalled. Such paranoia persists today with suspicions about the authorities’ control over nationalist groups like Russkaya Obshchina and Severnyi Chelovek.

Journalists uncover new evidence that the Kremlin prerecords Putin’s meetings to sustain the illusion of constant work

RFE/RL’s investigative project Systema has uncovered fresh evidence that the Kremlin routinely releases “canned” videos — pre-recorded footage of Vladimir Putin’s meetings with officials — and presents them as recent events. Systema counted five such videos released in April–May 2025 and another five since mid-August. Investigators base their conclusions on details such as changes in the arrangement of books and pens in Putin’s office and officials appearing in the same clothes on different days to sustain the illusion of continuity.

You should know that the investigative outlet Proekt and journalist Farida Rustamova have documented this practice before. The Kremlin apparently resorts to “canned” footage to create the illusion that Putin never stops working. At times, there are clues as to why the president wished to conceal his absence from the office. For example, on May 12, RFE/RL identified a canned meeting with Ivanovo Governor Stanislav Voskresensky. That same day, Alina Kabaeva, who is widely described as Putin’s longtime partner and the mother of his sons, celebrated her 42nd birthday.