Russian opposition leader campaigns against voter apathy

FILE - In this June 7, 2015, file photo, Russian opposition activist and blogger Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd during a rally in a Novosibirsk park that attracted several hundred people in Novosibirsk, Navalny, the opposition leader who organized massive street protests in Moscow against Vladimir Putin four years ago, had a much harder time drawing a big crowd in Siberia’s largest city last month. The banner in the background reads "Novosibirsk decides". (AP Photo/Alexander Lukin, File) FILE - In this June 7, 2015, file photo, Russian opposition activist and blogger Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd during a rally in a Novosibirsk park that attracted several hundred people in Novosibirsk, Navalny, the opposition leader who organized massive street protests in Moscow against Vladimir Putin four years ago, had a much harder time drawing a big crowd in Siberia’s largest city last month. The banner in the background reads "Novosibirsk decides". (AP Photo/Alexander Lukin, File)

By Associated Press July 1, 2015 7 min read

NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia (AP) – Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who organized massive street protests in Moscow against Vladimir Putin four years ago, had a much harder time drawing a big crowd in Siberia’s largest city last month.

Maybe it was the scorching heat of the short Siberian summer that kept the size of the weekend rally to about 1,000 people.

Maybe it was the disillusionment and apathy that many Russians are feeling about their political system these days.

Or maybe it’s that Navalny’s anti-corruption message is being drowned out by a Kremlin media campaign increasingly focused on the separatist war in Ukraine and the standoff with the West.

As a result, Russians across the vast country seem to have become so fixated on Ukraine that their own economic and social problems are getting pushed to the back burner.