Russian voters are standing up to Vladimir Putin – it’s time the rest of the world did, too

Editorial: The more support Western allies of Kyiv provide, the more holes are punched in Putin’s false vision of the world

Yulia Navalnaya was present at a rally in Berlin on Sunday, her appearance there was a reminder of just how brave acts of defiance are (AFP/Getty)

In today’s Russia, any form of dissent against Vladimir Putin is a brave act. Given the president’s iron grip on the country – a grip that has only tightened across his more than two decades in power – the choice to protest is taken with the knowledge that a lengthy jail term is likely.

The crackdown from the Kremlin has intensified since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine a little more than two years ago. Nearly a thousand other critics and anti-war dissidents have been imprisoned across Russia, while Putin’s fiercest critic, Alexei Navalny, was announced dead a month before the vote, by officials in the brutal Arctic prison in which he was being held on charges that countries around the world lined up to decry as trumped up to silence him. Mr Navalny’s widow, Yulia, made clear that her husband had been killed by Putin, and Western leaders again lined up to declare the Russian leader responsible.

Just before his death, Mr Navalny put out a call for people to vote en masse at midday on Sunday across Russia, a symbolic gesture to show Russians – and Putin – that however much he tried to clamp down on dissent, he cannot stamp it out, and one providing a clear picture that those who seek change are not alone.