Hi! This is Vyorstka’s politics desk. We’ve put together a big story about a man...

Hi! This is Vyorstka’s politics desk. We’ve put together for you a big story about a man who fit seamlessly into Putin’s system of imitation, war, and repression. We’re talking about State Duma deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov, the leader of the small but very nasty Rodina party.

A former “master” of a provincial fight club from the 1990s and a friend of Dmitry Rogozin, he put together a combo of everything the Kremlin now happens to need. Feeblemindedness and courage An obviously limited mind, a willingness to risk his life a little and not care about his reputation for the sake of what he falsely understands as serving the motherland, as well as total loyalty for just 300 million rubles amassed over a political career of more than 30 years. Not really that much by the standards of Russian corrupt officials.

If we forget for a second that before us stands a genuine ghoul demanding that even Yabloko intellectuals be sent to the front, we will see a man who even has some positive traits. Loyal to his friends, he does not “shift” from a position once declared (that is, principled in his own way), and perhaps quite sincerely wants what he sees as good for Russia.

As poet Dmitry Bykov once wrote about another “hero of Russian nationalists,” Yuri Budanov: “He would have been a fine soldier in a normal war.” But there are no normal wars, and the current one certainly will not bring any glory to Russian fighters. All the more so to the fighters of the political front.

Still, Zhuravlyov is unlikely ever to agree with that, and under almost any outcome of the current war we will surely see him again in the most jingoistic and nationalist camp. He can no longer change the basic things about himself.

Who is Alexei Zhuravlyov, the man who got Yabloko removed from the elections? Read on Vyorstka’s website (with VPN):

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Fist fighter, nationalist, motorcyclist. Who is Alexei Zhuravlyov, the man who got Yabloko removed from the elections

The path from a Komsomol member from Voronezh to one of the Kremlin’s most useful “tame oppositionists”