What has changed in Russian politics since the parliamentary election of September 2021? What is Putin’s plan for the presidential election of 2024? What is the outcome of the recent crackdown against the opposition? Leonid Volkov, chief of staff for Alexey Navalny and political director of Navalny’s movement, will reflect on the state of Russian politics on the eve of the Big Transition.
Leonid Volkov is chief of staff for Alexey Navalny. He was campaign manager for Navalny’s mayoral campaign in Moscow in 2013, as well as for his bid to get onto the presidential ballot in 2018. Between 2017 and 2021 Leonid Volkov has created and led Team Navalny’s network of regional offices in 45 Russia’s largest cities. Leonid Volkov is in charge of Team Navalny’s political projects, including the Smart Voting, a tactical voting campaign that yielded many victories for the Russian political opposition in the regional elections of 2019-2021 as well as in the Duma election of 2021. Since 2019 Leonid Volkov operates from abroad; there are seven politically motivated criminal cases brought against him in Russia. An IT-professional by background, Volkov is also the co-founder of the Internet Protection Society, Russia’s leading digital rights NGO.