Putin’s political enemies and Kremlin critics face an ‘extremely dangerous’ situation in Russia right now

Political opposition and activism within Russia has always been fraught with risks but it has become increasingly impossible in recent years, with political analysts saying it is now “extremely dangerous” to oppose the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Being a politician and openly against war and Putin’s rule in Russia is close to impossible,” Anton Barbashin, a Russian political analyst and the editorial director of online journal Riddle Russia, told CNBC.

“All of the opposition political leaders are either in jail or under restrictive measures or outside of the country. I would not say opposition is dead. Opposition is fully illegal,” he noted.

The oppression of political opposition figures in Russia is nothing new. A number of high-profile Russian businessmen and opposition politicians critical of the Kremlin and Putin have been harassed, detained, disappeared or been imprisoned over the last two decades.

Some accuse the Russian state of trying to poison them, while others have died in suspicious circumstances. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in such cases.

The persecution of political opposition figures attracted global attention in 2020 when the high-profile Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. The Kremlin denied any involvement in the poisoning and Navalny survived, only to be imprisoned shortly after returning to Russia following life-saving hospital treatment in Germany.

He is currently serving nine years in a maximum-security prison for fraud and contempt of court, charges he and his allies decried…