Under pressure: How the Russian authorities have expanded their fight against Alexey Navalny’s ‘Smart Vote’ initiative ahead of September’s parliamentary elections

In recent months, the remnants of imprisoned opposition politician Alexey Navalny's team have endured police pressure that has no precedent in Russia's post-Soviet history. The authorities have devoted special attention to "Smart Vote," the Navalny movement's strategic initiative (first introduced in 2019 and 2020 for local elections in Moscow, Tomsk, and Novosibirsk) that directs opposition voters to the candidates Team Navalny deems likeliest to defeat nominees from United Russia, the country's ruling political party. In its war against Smart Vote, Russia's federal censor, RKN, has even started threatening some of the world's biggest Internet companies. Here is a chronology of the last three months in this confrontation between the Russian state and Alexey Navalny's last-standing national campaign. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/09/11/under-pressure