Europe | Get them while they’re young

Vladimir Putin’s henchmen target Russia’s universities and students

There’s an election coming

|MOSCOW

AS ALEXEI NAVALNY, Russia’s leading opposition politician, was being hauled off to jail in January, four editors of “Doxa”, an online student magazine, posted a YouTube video. The two men and two women were students at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, generally considered to be Russia’s best liberal university. They spoke out about the intimidation being deployed by the staff of schools and universities in order to dissuade young people from joining a planned protest against Mr Navalny’s mistreatment.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Get them while they’re young”

The threat from the illiberal left

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