Political protest of Russian youth: specifics of formation and actualization

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of generating protest sentiments among young people of modern Russia and their manifestation in various formats - physical and digital. At the same time, particular attention is paid to such trends in the development of youth protest as its virtualization - the transfer to the Internet communications environment, the predominance of the emotional component over the cognitive one, and its structural amorphousness. Equally important trends in the crystallization of youth political protest in modern Russia are its increasingly pronounced social orientation and problematic localization, as well as de-ideologization, which leads to a partial fusion of social and political protest discourses. It is also noted that the political protest of Russian youth is characterized by internal generational differences. Representatives of the older age group - the generation of millennials (26-35 years old) - are more rational and consider the choice in favor of protest forms of behavior in the pragmatic perspective of their own socio-economic interests and life prospects. At the same time, the generation of 14-25-year-old Russians (zoomers) - today represents the socio-political segment that is most susceptible to protest sentiments and has a high mobilization potential of protest activity.