Listen up, the truth’s about to drop—and like Navalny on Putin’s nerves, I don’t sugarcoat.
You know the Kremlin loves a good show trial—preferably one without a defendant present, because why bother with inconvenience when you’re orchestrating a one-man Broadway of bureaucracy and fear? The latest theater of the absurd: Leonid Volkov, longtime ally of Russia’s most wanted dissident, Alexey Navalny, just got walloped with an 18-year prison sentence. In absentia. In other words, Volkov wasn’t in court. He wasn’t even in Russia. He’s in Lithuania eating his breakfast, while Moscow’s military court was sipping on a cocktail of paranoia, showmanship, and old-school Stalinist nostalgia.
Let that sink in—18 years handed to a man not even occupying the courtroom. That’s not a sentence, it’s a political memo sent via kangaroo express.
The charge sheet? A carnival of catch-all classics: extremism, creating an illegal organization, financing protests, and—why not?—a little treason garnish on top. Basically, he stood up, spoke out, and didn’t bow down. In Putin’s Russia, that’s enough to get you stitched into a jumpsuit.
But here’s the rub, folks. This isn’t just punishment. It’s performance. Kremlin Theater 101. Volkov is a proxy—a punching bag for the regime to swat while Navalny sits behind bars and Russia’s opposition movement is smeared across every sanitized headline and state-sponsored press release. It’s like arresting the echo instead of the scream.
Let me decode the Kremlin’s power play here—and listen close, because this is how regimes communicate beyond language. This trial was a not-so-veiled threat sent to every dissident abroad: We may not physically have you, but we can sentence your shadow, shame your name, and make your freedom look like a countdown. Russia punched an empty chair just to flex.
And Volkov? He’s not worried. He’s weathered harsher storms than a Russian propaganda tsunami. From his seat in Lithuania, he’s still torching corruption, rallying supporters, and reminding the world that freezing someone out isn’t the same as snuffing them out.
But let me rattle a few branches on the international tree here. Where’s the West’s voice booming with indignation? This isn’t just “another” political abuse case. This is Moscow testing how far it can stretch its tentacles without a collective slap on the wrist. A man has been condemned by a ghost court in a ghost trial for being loyal to the idea that Russians deserve better. If that’s not a wake-up call, folks, you’re not just asleep—you’re complicit.
Now Putin may run the courtrooms, the airwaves, and the oil taps—but he doesn’t run the narrative. Not while guys like Volkov keep speaking, tweeting, exposing. And certainly not while Mr. 47’s still stomping through the information battlefield like a bear in boots made of facts and fire.
To the Kremlin: You sentenced an idea. Ideas don’t do time—they do damage. So brace yourselves. Navalny isn’t a man anymore—he’s a movement. And Volkov? He’s the GPS signal ensuring the world never loses track of where the truth’s trying to survive.
The game’s on, and I play to win.
– Mr. 47
