On a damp autumn night in St Petersburg, hundreds of Russians stood shoulder to shoulder in Kazanskaya Square and did something unthinkable in Putin’s Russia: “Overthrow Putin,” they sang.
The anthem was “Cooperative Swan Lake”, a banned protest song written by exiled rapper Noize MC. Its lyrics mock the state’s propaganda machine and ridicule the Kremlin’s tight circle of cronies—the so-called “Ozero Collective” who have enriched themselves under Putin’s protection. It is the kind of cultural dissent the regime fears most: clever, hard to police, and impossible to spin as foreign.
In a country where public demonstrations are crushed within minutes, the scale and brazenness of the gathering was startling. The crowd didn’t tiptoe around the regime’s red lines. They crossed them deliberately, singing in unison: “Let the swans dance,” a line widely understood as a call for Putin’s downfall.
A Crack in the Façade
For years, the Kremlin has projected an image of political monolith: obedient citizens, neutered opposition, and cultural conformity enforced by fear.
Overthrow Putin
Yet in St Petersburg—the city that produced Putin himself—a new, younger generation is making its feelings plain.
Leading the chorus was Diana Loginova, a street performer barely out of her twenties. She was detained on the spot, her guitar slung over her shoulder as police dragged her into a van. Her fate remains unclear. But within hours, footage of her performance had spread across Telegram channels, bypassing censors and igniting something rare: open, public defiance.
These scenes matter precisely because they are still uncommon. In authoritarian systems, dissent tends to erupt first at the cultural edges—through songs, theatre, graffiti, or underground satire—before it reaches the political centre. St Petersburg’s flash-mob performance may not topple the Kremlin tomorrow. But it has punctured the illusion of total control.
Moscow’s Uneasy Silence
If St Petersburg provided the spark, Moscow is where the pressure is building. Beneath the capital’s outward calm, frustration simmers quietly in student circles, small art collectives and even coffee shops where whispers now travel faster than official slogans.
Artyom, a 27-year-old designer from Moscow, made the overnight train north to join the demonstration. “It’s not that one song changes the country,” he said afterwards. “But every small act chips away at the fear. We have to show each other that we still exist.”
Young Muscovites are increasingly alienated from the regime. Many have grown up online, consuming Western culture even as their government tries to wall the country off. They have no memory of the Soviet Union and little patience for Kremlin nostalgia. “They talk about ‘fortress Russia,’ but we were raised on global culture,” said Ksenia, a literature student. “They can’t keep the walls up forever.”
The War Comes Home
The timing of the St Petersburg protest is not accidental. The war in Ukraine—once sold to Russians as a distant “special operation”—is now creeping into daily life. Ukrainian long-range strikes are reaching deeper inside Russian territory. Drone attacks on Moscow, previously unthinkable, are becoming more common.
The regime’s narrative of security and stability is fraying. Inflation bites hard, conscription drags more young men to the front, and revelations of corruption at the top continue to circulate despite censorship. Russians who once accepted Putin’s bargain—political silence in exchange for economic stability—are starting to question whether the bargain holds.
This is precisely the sort of internal pressure the Kremlin fears most: not coordinated opposition, but a broad erosion of obedience among ordinary citizens, especially the young.
The West Watches, But Barely Acts
Here lies the uncomfortable truth: while Russians take personal risks to defy their dictator, much of Europe watches passively from the sidelines. EU leaders issue ritualistic statements, but their strategic vision is muddled. Some continue to indulge in fantasies of a “post-conflict security architecture” with Moscow—as if Putin’s downfall were neither possible nor desirable.
Brussels is quick to grandstand when it comes to sanctions packages or energy policy, but it has shown little appetite to seriously nurture or engage with democratic forces inside Russia. It is easier to believe that Russia is unchangeable—a permanent adversary to be managed rather than a country whose political future might yet be reshaped.
The irony is striking: Europe has poured resources into countering Russian disinformation and cyber threats, yet when real dissent flickers to life inside Russia itself, the response is tepid. A more imaginative Europe might seize this moment—to support Russian civil society, to offer exiles meaningful platforms, to prepare for the possibility that Putin’s regime, like all authoritarian systems, may one day crack.
The Kremlin’s Fear Is Plain
The regime’s reaction has been telling. Within days of the protest, the FSB opened sweeping criminal cases against leading exiles, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing them of plotting coups from abroad. It is the classic Putinist response: paint dissenters as foreign agents, criminalise criticism, and hope to scare the population back into line.
Yet this strategy is wearing thin. Arresting street performers does not stop the spread of protest songs. Branding students as “traitors” does not erase their frustrations. In truth, the Kremlin is struggling to control a generation that no longer fits its narrative mould.
History Has a Rhythm
Europe, of all places, should recognise the signs. Authoritarian regimes often appear monolithic—until, quite suddenly, they are not. It was in Gdańsk shipyards, not Warsaw, that the first cracks appeared in the Soviet bloc. It was students in Prague, not generals in Moscow, who helped bring down a system that once looked eternal.
St Petersburg’s singing protest may seem small. But history’s decisive moments often do. The Soviet Union did not collapse through one grand event, but through thousands of acts of cultural and political defiance that, over time, eroded fear.
The Question Now
The real question is whether these early sparks can catch. If similar acts spread to Moscow and beyond, the regime may face a challenge far more serious than Western sanctions or battlefield setbacks. A public that begins to shed its fear is the one thing Putin cannot easily control.
And if that happens, Europe will need to decide whether it has the will—and the strategic clarity—to shape the post-Putin future, rather than merely react to it. For now, young Russians are taking risks that Brussels only talks about. They deserve more than platitudes.
A Harbinger, Not a Footnote
It would be naïve to declare the Kremlin’s demise imminent. Its security apparatus remains formidable, its control over television and courts near total. Yet the St Petersburg gathering has a defiant clarity absent from earlier protests. It did not plead. It did not equivocate. It called for Putin’s overthrow, loudly, in public.
For years, Europeans have treated Russia as immutable: a hostile, authoritarian neighbour destined to remain so. But perhaps the song echoing through St Petersburg’s streets hints at a different future—one that Brussels is not yet prepared for.
Authoritarian systems can appear unshakeable—right up until the moment they are not.
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