[thriftwy]

He is largely irrelevant now. He was significantly popular, but there is a combination of:

1. Many of his most fervent followers fleeing the country in February or September 2022.

2. His team being useless and consisting of people of very questionable loyalty (the question remains why he let them all in), and in many cases under their own brands.

3. Overall switch from the anti-corruption discourse towards different set of topics, such as war, etc - where he does not have much relevance.

4. Him being AFK (not to blame him for that).

5. His organization FBK now resides abroad, burning grant money and not doing anything useful for Russian residents.

[hvis]

1 and 5 are semi-true, 2 is false (both parts), 3 and 4 are fair enough.

The overall statement is false (he remains the most recognized opposition figure in the country).

[walteweiss]

On top of that, the guy is literally a racist, if anyone cares to explore his past. But he’s all hero these days, because he wants to be in charge of Russian regime instead of Putin. He’s portrayed as a fighter for freedom, while actually right now, any Ukrainian soldier does more to protect the values of democracy. By literally fighting tooth and nail for it. But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?

[jimmymmcgill]

Was waiting for this comment. Yes he did (have to) ally with nationalists in the past. He did say negative things about migrants. Nevertheless, he stated multiple times since then that it's not his views anymore.

Speaking of racism and nationalism, let's be honest Euromaidan in 2014 would never succeed without the support of the Right Sector. This type of brutal force was missing in Belarus 2020 protests.

[orwin]

It still have support from both a nationalist right and an internationalist left. Let's not forget the only anarchist regime that beat out an Army was Ukrainian, and that has a certain appeal to the left. I have three friends and I know that a complete antifa cell went there (some came back, war seems terrible even if you 'just' want to volonteer at a hospital). Regardless, it's followed by the entire political spectrum.

[thriftwy]

He was hoping to get elected. You need to have broad popular support to get elected (see Trump), hence the "views".

Some time later it became apparent that he is not going to be elected and elections will not be the thing, so the new plan was getting paid by State Dept NGOs, with corresponding change to "views".

My personal take on Navalny is that he mostly was a charismatic opportunist, but eventually that lured him in a trap.

[dfadsadsf]

>But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?

Ukrainians should be grateful for support they get and dramatically reduce sense of entitlement. US provided more material support to Ukraine in the last year than to any other country in history. Constant whining becomes tedious and defense of the democracy argument is questionable.

[walteweiss]

Could it be because of the Budapest Memorandum? Ever heard of that?