Our strange post-truth era turns everything upside down and paints black as white. It is vital that we remember the basics and not lose our bearings to avoid going crazy.
So I just want to remind you that:
Vladimir Putin is a dictator, murderer, and war criminal.
It is immoral and outrageous to work on Putin’s behalf and aid him.
The Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine is unlawful and unwarranted.
Ukraine is the victim of aggression.
Russia is a police state: it stifles dissent and persecutes its citizens for dissenting.
Any individual who resists Putin’s regime deserves our encouragement.
Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov are Russian heroes.
There should be a regular transition of power in all countries.
Hi, everyone! The Russian Federation put me on the wanted list today. Why? Because first I taught Russian to foreign students and because of that I became a “foreign agent,” and then, apparently, because I didn’t fulfill the requirements of the law on “foreign agents”: I drew anti-war comics on [“foreign agent”] report forms to the Justice Ministry.
(A story in the guise of a Russian language lesson)
“The accusative case is the object case: it answers the questions whom and what. For example, whom do we love? What do we love? A friend, mom, a city. Whom do we hate? What do we hate? The weather, the rain, the snow.”
I point out the window. A disgusting Petersburg sleet is coming down outside, and the class laughs. We often joke about the the city’s atrocious weather. All my students hail from warm countries: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan. Adults between the ages of twenty and fifty, they are people who are commonly called migrant workers. Tired, in black jackets, they apologize verbosely. They know Russian slang because they learn it on the street, at the market, and at work, but they don’t know what a noun is, because they have had little schooling even in their native languages and have been working since they were children.
“Remember we were talking about the dative case, the case of the addressee? To whom do we give something? To whom do we say something? To a sister, to a friend.’
(Here I want to make an aside about the verticality and horizontality of Russian grammatical cases, but I stop myself because I realize it’s superfluous, although I find the explanation felicitous: the dative case is horizontal, while the accusative case is hierarchical and vertical.)
I say this to my students, but my dean is sitting at the back of the classroom, listening attentively, and next to him sits an FSB officer whom my rector dragged into my class. The FSB officer is also listening attentively. It’s hard to say whether I hate anything in my life more than this situation and those two.
“Unlike the dative case — the case of the second subject in an exchange, where I talk to someone, for example, to a person or to a friend (the person is involved in the exchange: they hear and understand me) — the accusative case indicates the object of an action: I eat a pizza, I read a book.”
A few days earlier, my rector had telephoned me and asked me to ask one of my students to come in, ostensibly for a test. I asked him why this was necessary, if the woman had already taken the entrance exam. He said that an FSB officer would come to my lesson, because the student was person of interest to him, but that she should not know the FSB officer would be there.
I said that it was not part of my job description, that I never lie and would never lie to a student. I also told the rector that my class was a class, not an FSB office, and that I was opposed to anyone being spied on in my class, to which the rector replied that he had the right to come to my class with whomever he saw fit and that he would telephone the student himself.
‘What endings can we use in the accusative case? For masculine nouns, we use the zero ending if it is an object (a what?), for example, ‘I know this film’, ‘I read the text’, or -a/-ia if it is a person (a whom?), for example, ‘I know the [male] teacher’ [uchitelia], ‘I see the [male] student’ [studenta]. For feminine nouns, the ending is always -u, for example, ‘I see the book [knigu], ‘I see the [female] student [studentku].
I don’t see the student in class. I haven’t seen her all week since that phone call and I don’t know what to do. Should I call her and tell her that the dean wants to talk to her and that the FSB is interested in her? If I called her on my mobile phone, then the FSB would be interested in me. All week I have been trudging round the city: it’s autumn, November, the weather is disgusting, my feet are wet, I’m working ten hours a day, I don’t see my children, I don’t see the sun. How come I took it all on myself, this job, this workload? Why do I have to bear it alone? Who’s to blame? I guess it’s my fault. But I can’t afford not to work even on my birthday. And then there’s this student. God, what am I going to say to her? Flee the country? Maybe they’ll just ask her questions. It’s not like they’re going to bring a paddy wagon to the university to arrest her…
“What? Yes, there’s no difference between objects and persons: sister [sestru], girlfriend [podrugu], teacher [uchitel’nitsu], street [ulitsu], hand [ruku].
Why are the two of us — two women in a patriarchy — again getting screwed over for everything? Men have invented the patriarchy, that drug for their delicate egos which comes with wars, exploitation, violence, and control. It messes with your head and then blames you for everything being wrong.
“Yes, that’s right. Oyatullo, please come up with sentences using the verbs ‘read,’ ‘write,’ and ‘see’ with nouns in the accusative case.”
When I came to work today, the dean and the FSB guy were already in the classroom. While I was still thinking what to do, everything had already happened, so I started the lesson. Why aren’t future language teachers warned that their profession will involve this? There was pogrom at my last job, a year ago. They came from the FSB, from the migration service. They blocked the doors from the inside, tore my folders with the students’ documents inside, yelled at me and at the students, and those courses were shut down. Then a year passed, and I found a new job: the cultural capital of Russia, beautiful St. Petersburg, Liteiny Prospekt, the Yusupov mansion, stucco, gold, chandeliers, cold, dust, red carpets, students in their jackets and hats. It was sad but mentally manageable. It seemed like things would be decent now, but no, the cops have shown up here too. Now things are just as they should be, the whole nine yards.
“Okay, great! Now let’s do some exercises from the textbook.”
The thing I hate, the vertical in the back row, is slowly segueing into a diagonal. The FSB guy is sitting next to the radiator. You can tell by his flushed mousey face that he’s spent a lot of time outside today and now, in this warm room, he’s gone limp and snuggled up against the wall.
“Page 218, exercise 8, Munisa, please!”
I’ve been working here for a few months now. I have been telling the students about grammar, and they have been telling me about nationalism. They’ve told me about a lot of things — for instance, about the cop who confiscated one’s student’s sack of apples when he realized she didn’t have the money to pay him a bribe; about how they hid in cement bags; about how the neighborhood beat cop visits them once a month to collect 3,000 rubles from each their flats, just because he can; about how landlords refuse to let flats to them; about what people say to them on the street.
“Okay, now let’s turn the page.”
The FSB guy at the back desk is asleep, while the dean sits with his eyes half closed. I think that’s probably what the peak of your career looks like: when you have an FSB officer asleep in your class. Or, depending on how you look at it, maybe it’s the bottom of your career. I also think that it would be good if he kept sleeping like that. Sleeping Beauty slept for a hundred years, so there are historical precedents. That would suit me just fine. I try to keep my voice down.
“Let’s use these same verbs now in the future tense and at the same time we’ll practice the perfect and imperfect aspects of the verb.”
On the wall of my shabby office, just opposite the blackboard, the phrase “Dasha is a rube” was written in black, but then corrected to “Dasha is a nube” in green.
The student for whom the ambush at the back desk was arranged enters the classroom. She is older than me, thin, and wears a hijab, and she has come with her grown-up son. I quickly think that this is better, that it is good she is not alone. The dean briskly rushes up and tells me and my students to move to another classroom and finish our lesson there.
We leave with our books and notebooks. We walk along the red carpet, past a portrait of the patriarch in a golden frame, past a poster against corruption (I remember how once a student tried to bribe me right under this poster), past some oil landscape paintings, past stands with pictures of the father the rector, his son the assistant rector, and his mother the dean. Then we pass the security guard who calls my students “blacks.”
How shameful.
“Okay, let’s finish this page.”
I stopped by the classroom after class. The student and her son were already leaving, and they looked very upset. I never found out what had happened there or what the FSB had wanted with her, and I never saw her again.
This job of mine ended a few months later because of the [2018] FIFA World Cup. Private universities were prohibiting from offering “pre-university” courses. Formally, this was done to reduce the number of students from Central Asia, but in fact it was done so that there would be fewer migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia’s capital cities during the World Cup, because the superpower Russia hinges not only on power but also on provincialism. What would foreigners from the first world see when they came to Russia? Other foreigners, but from the third world?
My lousy work schedule ended a little later, when I was able to find a normal job, that is, several jobs. A little later still, my quasi-marriage ended, because I couldn’t fool myself anymore, and later still my life in St. Petersburg ended in political persecution and emigration.
And only a prolonged feeling of guilt remained with me in the wake of it all: about how I should have behaved, where that woman is now, and whether she is doing well.
Dear friends, thank you for the words of support. Yesterday, I realized that, although I had know that sooner or later I might be put on [Russia’s] wanted list, I wasn’t ready for it.
I probably used to joke about it, and I still do. For example, there are my children: their parents are wanted because one of them insulted the feelings of religious believers, while the other taught foreign students and submitted incorrect reports to the Justice Ministry.
An illustration of Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s mock execution on Mytninskaya Square in Petersburg, 31 May 1864. Source: Istoriia.RF
But this grotesque discrepancy between the gravity of the “crimes” and the sanctions masks what I see as a modern Russian form of mock execution. Remember how Chernyshevsky was put through this? He had a signboard bearing the words “state criminal” hung on his chest, and his sword was broken above his head.
In addition to that, he was sent into exile, banned from publishing books and living in the capital cities, placed under constant surveillance, and so on.
It’s a pity I don’t have a sword to break.
You know, when it happens to you, the feelings which arise are complicated. If it were only about my relations with the authorities, it would be easier. But it automatically implies that I cannot go back to Russia, and although I had not planned on doing this in the near future, yesterday I realized that it hurts me a lot.
I was on the bus when I got the call from Varya.
“I have to tell you so you don’t find out about this on the new,” she says to me.
“So, what happened?”
“You’ve been put on the wanted list. Are you okay?
(I’m not okay: I’m crying. I forgot I could cry like that.)
“Dasha, where are you now?”
“I’m on the bus, Varya. I missed my bus and the driver of another bus has let me ride for free.”
“He let you on because you could explain everything so well in German?”
“No, because he found out I was Russian. He said he was Serbian and loved Russia.”
(Varya laughs.)
“You tell him that his beloved Russia has put you on the wanted list.”
“Varechka, I still don’t have a ticket and I have to get to my destination, so I won’t tell him about this.”
As I rode in the bus, I thought that I should write down this conversation and that I too, like my Serbian driver, love Russia. I love Kamchatka, Siberia, and St. Petersburg — all three of my homelands, and I miss the people dear to me and the places dear to me, the people and places which nourished me and brought me up, teaching me to be freedom-loving and independent.
So I am sorry that thing are like this, that my country does not want to see me but puts me on the wanted list as if it wanted to see me. I would like our friendship to be mutual.
I was brought up in the Soviet Union to believe that when a malicious, cruel aggressor attacks civilians, you have to take up arms and go do battle with him, and that if you cannot bear arms, you help the people who are doing battle and call on others to do the same.
All my work as a political commentator has been about calling on people to go do battle with the aggressor which has attacked Ukraine, to assist Ukraine with weapons and ammunition.
No one had attacked or threatened Russia.
It was Putin’s Nazi regime which attacked Ukraine, only because of the megalomania of the regime’s ringleaders, because of their inhuman thirst for power over all they survey.
Murdering hundreds of thousands of people is their way of bolstering their self-esteem. They are degenerates, scum, and Nazi riffraff.
The guilt of Putin’s Nazi dictatorship in plotting, unleashing, and waging a war of aggression is obvious and does not need to be proven. We also do not need to prove our right to offer armed resistance to this aggression on the battlefield and in the aggressor’s rear. It would be laughable to expect this right to be acknowledged by a regime which tosses people in prison for morally condemning its aggression out loud. All legal means of protesting Putinist Russia’s aggression have been eliminated.
My calls to resist the aggressor’s regime with armed force have caused me to be charged with terrorism.* I won’t deign to argue with the aggressor’s officials even if they claim my actions constitute pedophilia. Russia’s courts have long ago shown themselves to be appendages of the Nazi tyranny and seeking justice from them is pointless. I will never stand up before these people, who are the lackeys of murderers and scoundrels.
I see no point in arguing with puppets of the dictatorship about how conscientiously they execute their own laws. In any case, these laws are the laws of a totalitarian state and their aim is to stifle dissent. I do not recognize these laws and I will not obey them.
I also have no intention of appealing any rulings made by or actions taken by representatives of the Nazi regime.
The Putinist dictatorship may murder me, but it cannot force me to stop fighting against it. Wherever I find myself, I will keep calling on honest Russians to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces. I will keep calling for airstrikes on military facilities deep in Russian territory. I will keep calling on the civilized world to inflict a strategic defeat on Nazi Russia. I will keep trying to prove that the new Hitler’s regime must be routed militarily.
Putin is the new Hitler, a vampire driven insane by impunity and drunk on blood. I shall never grow tired of saying, “Crush the viper!”
Death to the murder, tyrant and scoundrel Putin!
Death to the Russian fascist invaders!
Glory to Ukraine!
[Grani.Ru:] Thanks to Alexander Valeryevich’s dedicated wife Olga Shcheglova (pictured above). Thanks to SotaVision for filming at the Petersburg military court (Skobov is participating in the trial via video link from Syktyvkar). Thanks to those who didn’t unsubscribe from Grani.Ru after it closed. It’s as if Skobov timed his brave deed to coincide with the final moral collapse of numerous media brands. And yet he will be heard by a handful of his contemporaries. But he has already gone down in history.
* Skobov has been charged with “publicly calling for terrorism,” “publicly condoning terrorism or promoting terrorism using the mass media, including the internet” and “organizing a terrorist community and participating in it.” If Skobov is convicted on these charges, he faces a maximum penalty of ten to fifteen years in prison and fines of up to one million rubles (approx. 9,500 euros)— TRR.
The band Picnic’s new concert program is entitled “One on One.”
Imagine a magic crystal with three facets. The first one is the eponymous new album. The second is video sequences and a laser show. And the third is the band’s musical calling cards: “The Egyptian,” “Kingdom of Curves,” “The Shining,” and others.
Since “the show must go on” (as the famous song says), it must go on not just any old way. The best minds from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok have been working on how to amaze you. Those who attended our concerts during The Future Awaits Us tour probably know already that Picnic’s bold claims are no empty threat. Of course, we will pull back the veil of secrecy, but only at the concert will all our secrets be revealed.
Both of these stances, however, involve a lack of agency, a factor that is borne out in other research we have conducted. Indeed, reviewing nearly 100,000 substantive war-related texts from across six Telegram channels—including three generally pro-war and three anti-war channels—suggests that a lack of agency is common both to supporters and opponents of the war.
On the pro-war channels—which were dominated by reports from the front and patriotic rallying cries, but also included a number of discussions of mobilization and ways out avoiding military service—attribution of “credit” for the war was mixed. Often, the war was highly personalized: something was ordered by Putin, said by his spokesman Dmitry Peskov, or carried out by (then) Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
When discussing mobilization, the discussion was dry and procedural, with no discernible consideration of justice or fairness (or the irony of pro-war channels discussing ways of avoiding the fight). Almost never did commentators use the first person: things were done, said or thought by others, but not by them.
On the anti-war channels, the war was largely de-personalized. To the extent blame was attributed to Putin, it was mostly implicit: because it was Putin’s war, his role appeared to require little overt discussion. Perhaps surprisingly, discussion of military mobilization, similarly to the pro-war channels, focused on procedural consideration[s] and avoided issues of justice and fairness. Unlike in the pro-war channels, however, there was considerable use of the first person, but predominantly the first person singular, as commentators discussed their own thoughts and experiences. Use of the first person plural—“we”, with connotations of collective responsibility and action—were rare.
Given the roles played both by “system justification” and “agreeableness” among war supporters—psychological motivations that encourage people to get in line and discourage difference—the lack of a sense of agency is not surprising. Even those who write openly of their support for the war on Telegram don’t tend to see the war as something over which they have any control; while the war may be prosecuted with their support, it is prosecuted without their involvement.
It is perhaps somewhat more jarring that this lack of agency seems to extend to much of the anti-war community, however. To be certain, anti-war Russians clearly claim responsibility for their own lives and, in many cases, for assisting Ukrainian refugees, for example. Moreover, there are individuals and small groups who have attempted acts of resistance ranging from anti-war graffiti and solitary protests to outright sabotage. But there is little discussion of any potential agency over the war itself, or the idea that, if they acted, Russian citizens might be able to bring the war to an end.
In the first half of 2024, the average bill for entertainment tickets (excluding movies) amounted to 3,400 rubles [approx. 35 euros], which is 18.8% higher than a year earlier, reported Yandex Afisha. According to the service, this economic indicator rose by 14% last year. The largest increase in the average bill was recorded in theaters, which rose by almost a quarter, up to 3,800 rubles. The average price of concert tickets on Kassir.ru[a online ticket purchasing service] increased by 20% compared to last year, and the total price increase for the first six months of the year amounted to 16%. Market participants say the increase in ticket prices has been caused by the growing costs of organizing events, as well as by increased demand for performances by domestic artists after the departure of many foreign performers. This has led to an increase in the fees sought by Russian artists and, consequently, to an increase in ticket prices.
But the continued damage to Putin’s authority after a catastrophic war and repeated shocks does not translate to an internal threat to his power. Nor is there a risk his regime might collapse in the foreseeable future, according to analysts.
Stanovaya said that many Russians, particularly members of the elite, had come to expect the worst in the war but realized that there was no alternative to Putin in Russia’s repressive political system.
“They are so used to shocking events. They’re so used to living in a very unpredictable situation, so it’s very difficult to surprise them. And they are also used to the feeling that they don’t have the power to affect anything, and they are helpless,” she said.
The crisis, she continued, had certainly undermined Putin’s authority — without necessarily undermining his grip on power.
The Russian Justice Ministry has once again designated Republic a “foreign agent.” This happened for the first time in 2021, but at that time a legal entity with which we soon severed ties was placed on the register of foreign agents. Now the publication itself has been put on the register. We are charged with “shaping a negative image of the Russian Federation,” as well as publishing “inaccurate information about the decisions taken by Russian federal officials and the policies they pursue.” I would like to remind you that Republic has always been financed solely by subscriptions, and Justice Ministry’s unjust ruling is a great reason to subscribe (if you are not subscribed already) or to renew your subscription.
And now, as usual on Saturdays, here are links to our latest articles and the best stories of the past week.
In “Power,” Ivan Davydov attempts to explain the psychology of Russians who have taken a position neither for nor against the war, but are “unopposed” to it. They probably make up the majority, but what explains their stance? A habitual mindset that regards political power as a force of nature, with which nothing can be done and which is better to ride out. “This stance is ethically vulnerable, but it is warranted by the know-how of several generations and supported by the self-preservation instinct,” argues Davydov.
[…]
Dmitry Kolezev, Editor-in-Chief, Republic
P.S. This is my last newsletter as editor-in-chief of Republic. I am leaving the post of my own free will. I announced my resignation a week ago: it has nothing to do with the Justice Ministry’s decision. I thank the authors, editors, and readers of Republic for the three years we have spent together. As they say in such cases, take care of Republic. And take care of yourselves, too.
Source: Republic Saturday newsletter, 1 June 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader, who has (mostly) happily subscribed to Republic for several years running. I will definitely be renewing my subscription later today to show them my support.
A “For Victory!” banner on the facade of the Contemporary, a long-shuttered movie house in Ivanovo, Russia. Photo: Ivan Davydov/Republic
Since the death of public opinion polling, people who are professionally obliged to speculate about Russian politics and make predictions about the future have been looking for signs literally everywhere, gradually turning from analysts into soothsayers.
For example, a respected opposition political scientist based in Europe recently wrote that “General Popov’s arrest may generate serious friction between society and the authorities.” By the way, this same political scientist has also been trying to gauge the mindset of Russians by counting the poop (excuse me!) and other unpleasant emojis that Russians (presumably) post as comments on the Telegram channels of Russian government officials and pro-regime propagandists.
He is an optimist, of course, confident that the regime is about to collapse. Poop emojis don’t lie!
Another political scientist, a pessimistic lady, on the contrary, gazes at Russia from her distant American vantage point, but does not even condescend to comment—she simply reposts a photo from a certain bookstore where Darya Dugina’s works are displayed on a separate shelf.
And really, what good are words? One glance at the photo is enough to get the whole point, to forget forever about terrible present-day Russia and wave it goodbye.
Nor am I an insider, alas. I’m not endowed with secret knowledge, and it has been a long time since I perused the “real polls” said to be commissioned by the presidential administration and other important agencies. Frankly speaking, I’m not even sure that such studies are still being conducted.
But there are still some advantages to being a participant observer, a person looking at Russia from the inside. In any case, I will risk sharing my own observations.
Has the Russian state been expanding into the cultural realm (since we mentioned bookstores)? Does it seek to reshape culture for propaganda needs? Yes, undoubtedly. It would be foolish to deny the obvious. And it has been invading more and more realms, where, until recently, it seemed one could sit back and wait out the storm. It has finally gone after “bad” books in a big way, it seems. Museums have also been toeing the line. Right now, for example, there are two exhibitions related to the special military operation underway in Moscow: Behind the Lines, a large-scale project at the Russian State Historical Museum, in whose launch [pro-war TV presenter] Vladimir Solovyov personally had a hand; and War Correspondents, at Zaryadye Park, in which the work of today’s TV correspondents is shown as a continuation of the work of journalists during the Second World War, in full compliance with the basic propaganda narratives. Regional museums have not been lagging behind the capital’s museums either.
Although television has indeed reduced the number of programs dealing with the ins and outs of the special military operation, even now they take up most of the airtime on the major channels.
The information warriors have been firing all guns. The only question is their firepower’s effectiveness.
In February and March 2022, the special military operation was undoubtedly the main topic of all conversations, from television studios to kitchens. Emotions were voiced in a variety of ways (and I wouldn’t say that enthusiastic support prevailed in the kitchens and subways), but rather quickly it all shifted to the outskirts of public opinion. There has been a “normalization” (that’s the accepted term, it seems) that has equally outraged both the vocal pacifists and the supporters of an immediate nuclear strike on Washington, the latter, perhaps, even more so. Complaints that no one on the home front cares about the war front are the leitmotif of many posts on the social media channels of the Zeds [Russian pro-war activists].
The zed (since we are on the subject of signs) is also an important sign. Nowadays you can find this letter in ordinary Russian cities, but it is no longer as prolific as it once was. There is, as a rule, one, big, main zed (Z) somewhere on a government building in the city center, but that’s all. And even that one is faded, mounted there long ago and thus overly familiar to the point of invisibility.
There are, of course, the Defense Ministry posters for recruiting contract soldiers. But they seem out of context as it were, speaking as they do about the chance to “join up with people just like you,” solve your financial and social problems, and, ultimately, rake in hefty paychecks. They are outside of time and devoid of specifics, of references to reality. We see a rugged-looking man in soldier’s kit, the Russian tricolor flag, tantalizing numbers….
If we speak, as is fashionable, of the current Russian regime as restorationist, we can argue that the country’s masters have succeeded in restoring only one thing—total depoliticization, the leadership’s fear of any doings that might be unwieldy and thus regarded as political. This was typical of the late-period Soviet Union (and ended overnight, we should note, when Gorbachev loosened the screws a bit). Cities that are like enclaves, people who are like atoms, the plight of the Russian opposition in the twenty-teens, and the isolated (yes, as yet isolated) crackdowns have vividly reminded the doubters what happens to eager beavers.
In this sense, nothing has changed in recent years. Perhaps the intensifying propaganda shows that the authorities have new ideas in this regard, that they have decided to make their words about the nation’s unprecedented unity mean something. It is unclear why, though: the regime will get nothing but problems by politicizing the populace. So far all these efforts have failed, however. The Master and Margarita and 1984, not the works of the Dugin family, are still atop the Russian bestseller lists. Brought to museums by their teachers, schoolchildren yawn and poke at their smartphones, while adults are almost absent. The escalating propaganda makes people neurotic rather than political, but since Soviet times the populace has had a remedy—an effective remedy—for countering this neuroticization.
It’s all the business of the folks in power. As long as it doesn’t directly concern you, don’t make a move, nothing good will come of your flailing. Political power is a force of nature, an element beyond human control, so try to have as little contact with it as possible. When asked whether you are for or against something, answer evasively, “I’m unopposed to it.” Better yet, hang up immediately if pollsters call you. The times are such that they can be even more dangerous than bank fraudsters.
Talking to crooks may make you poorer, but it certainly won’t get you sent to prison.
This stance is ethically vulnerable, but it is warranted by the know-how of several generations and supported by the self-preservation instinct. This stance poses obvious problems for the future—for any future, both the one cherished by fans of rights and freedoms and the one imagined by armchair slayers of Washington.
Open Space is a project that supports grassroots activists. It has two sites, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with co-working spaces, a human rights center, and a psychological center. The Moscow site is at odds with the pro-government movement SERB, known for its provocations against the opposition. Republic correspondent Nikita Zolotarev is often at Open Space, sometimes as a volunteer. That was how he found himself at the Moscow co-working space last Saturday, where he was detained along with other visitors on the basis of a complaint filed by the “Serbs,” who were assisting the police, and then spent several hours at the Basmannoye police precinct. Here is how it went down.
“It’s showtime,” SERB leader Igor Beketov said on his movement’s video stream before knocking on Open Space’s door. He and another SERB activist, Pyotr Rybakov, were able to get inside after the police arrived.
SERB’s video recap of the SERB-assisted police raid on Open Space Moscow, as posted on their Telegram channel on 19 May 2024
“A circus is about to kick off,” a young woman sitting across from me named Thiya texted a friend at 6:09 p.m. A knock on the door distracted her from solving a strength of materials problem. Nine minutes later, she sent a new message, writing that “the Serbs and the police” had come in.
The [pro-regime] activists walked around filming anything they saw as “extremist propaganda” and drawing the attention of police officers to it. Thus, halting near a painted copy of “The Brotherly Kiss,” the famous photo of Brezhnev kissing [East German leader Erich] Honecker, Pyotr and Igor began explaining something to a policeman. “What does this mean?” Rybakov asked, pointing to the drawing. “Since Soviet leaders could do it, it turns out that…,” he answered his own question uncertainly. The police officer remained expressively silent and photographed the image just in case.
The photograph known as “The Brotherly Kiss” was taken in 1979 at a meeting between Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in Berlin during the GDR’s thirtieth anniversary celebrations. Source: Regis Bossu/Sygma/Corbis
Then they went looking for members of Left Socialist Action (Levoe sotsialisticheskoe deistvie, or LevSD, for short), having prudently abbreviated the name of the organization to “LSD,” because, after perusing “the page of this movement, [they] saw that it does not smell of any left-wing movement.” What exactly they did not fancy about “LSD” on a day when the latter were holding “an evening of letters from some political prisoners” remains unclear.
“They came and almost broke down the door,” recalls Anastasia, who organized the event. The SERB activists asked her why her movement was holding an event in support of Ukraine, a conclusion at which they arrived after seeing a couple of posts with Ukrainian flags on Lev SD’s Telegram channel. Anastasia tried to persuade them that such “flags are posted after the massive shelling of Ukrainian cities to express condolences.” A brief discussion ensued, whose acme was the following question from Pyotr Rybakov: “Did you see Soviet people publishing posts in support of Germany during the bombing of Dresden?”
This discussion was witnessed by Anastasia’s friend Andrei, a expert on the history of Yugoslavia. He was surprised that Pyotr “probably didn’t know that there was no Telegram back then” and asked what, in Pyotr’s opinion, “equates the Great Patriotic War [World War Two] with current events.” The “Serb” responded by comparing Zelensky’s regime to Hitler’s, dubbing it “absolutely fascist.” After mentioning NATO, they smoothly segued to the bombing of Yugoslavia. This discussion did not last long: Pyotr soon ran out of arguments against the facts Andrei presented. The culmination of their conversation was when Andrei asked whether the SERB activist had read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, to which Pyotr replied that he had “never read Bunin.” Andrei recalls this conversation with a little annoyance: he says that if they had more time, he would have tried to wheedle some “less cannibalistic” information out of this “ideologically charged man” and “make him think.”
SERB leader Igor Beketov (aka Gosha Tarasevich) and his associate Pyotr Rybakov, both wearing black-and-orange scarves. Source: theins.ru.
At 6:32 p.m., a police officer let some of the people who wanted to smoke out by going out with them. It was as if he knew what the visitors were going to experience a little later.
In addition to writing letters to political prisoners event, a session of board games under the auspices of the Libertarian Party of Russia was being held in the basement of the co-working space. As organizer Vladislav tells it, the libertarians were having a quiet time when Open Space volunteer Sasha suddenly appeared and said, “We’ve got a situation: the police have showed up, the ‘Serbs’ have showed, but so far everything is fine.”
“We took note. I won at Jenga: my buddy had happily wrecked the tower,” recalls Vladislav. After that, he went to make coffee on the first floor of Open Space—where he saw the “Serbs” writing a complaint to the police.
At that moment, Andrei, the expert on Yugoslavia, made a terrible blunder for which he repented long afterwards: he offered the provocateurs Roshen caramels, a Ukrainian brand. On the table with the tea bags there was a metal box, where volunteers put sweets that keep for a long time. The ill-fated caramels were in this box on the day in question.
“You can’t get these candies so easily in Moscow—you have to make an effort to find them,” the SERB leader noted.
Forgetting about their complaint to the police, the “Serbs” paced the room talking about Roshen candies. Everyone else in the room was silent, listening attentively to their arguments. But since the entire candy argument consisted of no more than five sentences per two people—Beketov and Rybakov kept repeating the same thing—their listeners could barely contain themselves from laughing. “Sometimes candy is just candy,” Open Space volunteer Sasha finally told them and suggested they taste the caramels, adding that they were delicious. The activists resisted. “Roshen is good quality, no one is arguing about that. But they are Ukrainian candies!” they said. The conversation about candy was interrupted only by the advent of a paddy wagon.
Rybakov and Beketov writing their complaints to the police during the raid on Open Space, 18 May 2024: Source: social media
The people at the board game event hastily made to leave, but a police officer soon came down to them, and, according to Vladislav, “it was clear [we] would spend the next few hours in a less comfortable place.” The moment the policeman stepped away, Vladislav “snuck through a window.” The policeman shouted after him, summoning his partner, but Vladislav managed to escape to a subway station. Not knowing what to do, he wrote on the Libertarian Party’s Telegram channel that the police had begun detaining attendees at their event.
First, the attendees of the two events and several visitors to the space who were just minding their own business were dispatched to the police bus. One of the detainees calmly recalled how she went to the police bus: “Going to the police station isn’t the same as digging a ditch, and I was so tired anyway I wasn’t about to resist. It was a comfortable ride, but it’s a pity they didn’t bring me back.”
Anastasia, who for some reason was transported to the station separately from the others, recalls how she “snapped at the policemen while dying inside.” When asked if she had any sharp objects for stabbing or cutting, she “blurted out that only her tongue was sharp.” The policeman was amused, and a small exchange of pleasantries ensued, but he stopped laughing at her jokes as they neared the Basmannoye precinct.
Ten Open Space visitors went on the first trip to the station. I was among the second batch of six detainees. There were five seats on the Ford Transit bus, not counting the seats reserved for officers, and between the seats was a table, which Thiya occupied by placing the worksheets with the strength of material problems on it.
“More comfortable than in a economy class sleeping car,” said one of the detainees.
The “Serbs” stood by the police vehicle, taking turns proclaiming “Open Space is closed!” They seemed to enjoy the play on words. They too headed to the police station to file their complaint.
The Open Space detainees in the educational classroom at Basmannoye police precinct. Source: social media
We were taken to an educational classroom, where some of the people detained earlier were already located, as well as a couple of people who had been brought to the precinct independently of us—a young man detained for brawling and a woman who had attempted to strangle her sister. Some of the Open Space people were in another office. As transpired later, the officers wanted to take their fingerprints, and several people consented.
As one of the detainees recalls, when the officer “was taking our prints he referred to some order issued by [Interior Minister Vladimir] Kolokoltsev, dated such-and-such a day in July 2023, that all those brought to police precinctd must be fingerprinted.” There is no such order. Moreover, according to Article 13, Paragraph 19 of the Federal Law “On the Police,” an officer has the right to fingerprint a detainee only if their identity cannot be ascertained in any other way. Since almost all the detainees had [their internal] passports with them, they were used to establish their identities. And those detainees who refused to be fingerprinted and later signed statements that they refused to undergo the procedure, left the precinct even earlier than those who had been fingerprinted.
The key question we were all asked by the interrogators was whether we had anything to do with LGBT and whether we were involved in any activities related to this movement. Yevgeny, a lawyer who aid the LevSD detainees, recounted that all the police officers with whom he spoke were convinced that “this was some kind of LGBT gathering, a gay bar and so on.”
“When I told them about the event to aid political prisoners, they started telling me, ‘Come on, stop pitching us a yarn,'” the defense lawyer recalled. In response to the flyer for the event, which Yevgeny showed them, the officers told him, “That’s how they encrypt themselves.”
Around 8 p.m., we were given water and food, and journalists and a support group gathered under the windows of the classroom. At that time we were called out of the classroom to make our statements. It was my turn.
“You’ll tell me all about LGBT. I’ll tell you something too.”
With these words the interrogator started lazily looking for the copy of my passport and preparing a blank form for my statement. At that moment someone called him—probably some supervisor giving additional instructions. The interrogator mostly agreed with what the caller was saying, only at one point he uttered, “They’re mostly came to play board games, that’s all.”
Our conversation flowed smoothly, albeit with a few, brief lyrical digressions.
“What were you doing there?” the interrogator asked in a tired voice.
“I was helping Thiya do her homework, on strength of materials, as it turns out. She still has those strength of materials worksheets with there.”
“No, I forgot most of that stuff a long time ago.”
Another officer passed behind me, and my interrogator seemed to come to life.
“Listen, wait! There should be a broad in red pants out there. You cannot let her go!”
His colleague shared his worries.
“Everyone refuses to be fingerprinted.”
“The hell with them. What matters is the woman in red pants…. Don’t let anyone go at all!”
He was talking about Sasha, the Open Space volunteer.
“Nobody’s going anywhere.”
“That’s fucking great.” After a little silence, he added, drawling his words again, “The journalists haven’t arrived yet for some reason. But never mind.”
“Are you expecting them?” I asked with hope in my voice.
“They already filmed me.”
And then he complained me about how he wanted to get home, how he had already “one foot in [my] slipper, and then your gang arrived.” Suddenly, in an animated voice, he asked the key question of the evening:
“What’s up with LGBT?”
“I don’t know anything, I haven’t seen anything, I don’t belong to LGBT.”
“You getting married soon?”
“I am getting married soon,” I said, and showed him my engagement ring.
Trying to guess what material the ring was made of, he let me read the statement. When I asked him if I could get a copy of it just in case, he waved me off, saying, “Don’t even think about it.” I quotedThe Heart of a Dog, the passage about the “ultimate in certificates,” but it transpired that the interrogator had not “waded through” the novella. And he had not watched he movie version, either, because it was, from his point of view, a “cheesy farce.” He and I parted on these words.
Inside Basmannoye police precinct
While I was giving my statement, an officer came into the educational classroom and asked whether there was a “competent person” among those present, meaning someone legally literate, apparently, someone whou would write a refusal to be photographed and fingerprinted, so that everyone could write their own refusals using his as their model. Such a “competent person” was found, and the question itself provoked laughter among the detainees.
After my return to the “waiting area,” Thiya went to her interview, her strength of materials worksheets in tow. She returned twenty minutes later with a look of bewilderment on her face. The fact is that she is getting married soon—but not to me—and in the process of making her statement, the interrogator, after finding out that Thiya also had nothing to do with LGBT and was also getting married soon, assumed that she was getting married to me. Thiya wasn’t about to argue with him.
The interrogator reread her statement aloud: “I am getting married. I am not inviting the chief of police.”
“The above is an accurate record of my statement,” Thiya added in writing to the end.
One of the detainees who heard this conversation saw my surprised face—I was planning to marry someone else after all—and gave me a piece of advice.
“When questioned later, you answer that it was dark, and that’s why you mixed up [the fiancees].”
“Uh-huh. I was drunk, I don’t remember!” I joked back, and we laughed together.
“Seryoga, did you count the number of [detainees]?” one of the officers asked my interrogator in the meantime.
“I don’t fucking know. How many are there supposed to be? There’s a whole fucking busload of them, a whole fucking classroom of them. Count them as a pack,” Seryoga the interrogator replied. At some point he took the worksheets from detainee Thiya, scrutinized them, and pointed out a flaw in the diagram to her.
Meanwhile, Vladislav the libertarian was walking towards the police station—he wanted to support his comrades. His fellow party member Georgy Belov was signaling to him from the window: fearing that Vladislav would be detained by the police, he waved his hand at him, telling him to get away. One of the officers at the Basmannoye police department did head toward Vladislav, but he managed to escape again. He then went to the store to buy food to give to his fellow party members and, as he put it, “our buddies from LevSD.” Some time later, LevSD and LPR agreed to hold joint events, primarily debates.
At 8:30 p.m., the officers at the station detained Vladislav all the same. When he and the other libertarians at large brought the care package, the policemen noticed him standing under the windows and took him inside.
Vladislav the libertarian is detained outside Basmannoye police station. Source: Rus News
My attention was drawn to a female detainee who at some point started making postcards for political prisoners. She said that she would send them with the note “A postcard from Basmanny police station.” Someone wanted to work, but since there was no free Internet in the department, they were unable to. “I’m giving them a negative rating for not having wi-fi,” a young woman joked.
Anastasia was indignant.
“We are locked up here, a group of people who were not involved in anything criminal at all, while locked up here as well are a young man who was nicked for brawling and a woman who tried to strangled her sister. Instead of dealing with these people, the cops are dealing with political activists.”
This made her so angry that she stopped being afraid.
At some point, all the officers in the precinct left our part of the department. The metal door leading to the officers opens with a key card, so we had no communication with them. For a little over an hour we had “free time.” Everyone socialized, joked, and planned where they would go to drink beer after we were released, while some of the detainees chatted with the support group outside since the windows were open. And if it were not for the bars on those windows, it might have seemed that the detainees had not even left the co-working space.
From Open Space to Basmannoye police precinct. Source: social media
At around 10 p.m., the interrogator and another officer (the head of the department, probably) brought all the paperwork. They caloled the detainees by name, collecting their papers—the copies of their passports, fingerprinting refusals, and statements—and handing back their passports and escorting them to the queue for release.
At first, those who had not been fingerprinted were released, because “the staff had lost their fingers” [sic]. At 10:07 p.m., I found myself outside with a group of detainees. We waited for the others to be released. Journalists taped our commentary for their news dispatches. At that time, Sasha, the Open Space volunteer in the red pants, was driven away by the Basmannoye police officers for an inspection of the “crime scene,” during which they confiscated several stickers and posters. The last detainee, libertarian Georgy Belov, was released at 11:34 p.m.
Activist Alexandra (“Sasha”) Kalistratova on the seizure of stickers and posters in Open Space by law enforcers. Source: Rus News (Telegram)
“I feel like we had an interesting, productive time, but it was complete fucking rubbish per se,” said one of the female detainees. “Saturday night was unforgettable,” concluded Andrei.
Alexander Skobov. Photo courtesy of V. Izotov/Deutsche Welle
A new criminal case, on charges of “involvement in a terrorist community,” has been opened against former Soviet dissident and Russian political journalist Alexander Skobov, who has been detained for over a month on charges of “condoning terrorism.” This news was reported on Saturday, 18 May, on Skobov’s official Facebook account by his wife, Olga Shcheglova.
Shcheglova said that she visited her husband on 14 May in the pretrial detention center in Syktyvkar, where he had been transferred from St. Petersburg. During a conversation with him, his lawyer and local police investigators, she learned that Skobov has also been charged with “condoning terrorism” and “involvement in a terrorist community.” The dissident’s wife is convinced that these two charges stem from her husband’s affiliation with the Free Russia Forum.
According to Shcheglova, on 21 May, Skobov will be sent to the regional psychiatric hospital in Komi for a forensic psychiatric examination. Skobov himself has stated that he would not participate in the investigation and forensic expertise, and he would appear in court only if his mother were present at the hearings. Skobov’s defense has filed an appeal, which will be heard by the court on 22 May.
Skobov’s Persecution in the USSR and Russia
On 22 March 2024, Russian authorities designated Skobov a “foreign agent.” According to the Justice Ministry, he had “disseminated unreliable information” about the decisions of public officials, opposed the war, “identified the Russian Federation with a terrorist organization,” been involved in the work of an “undesirable organization,” and produced and distributed “foreign agent materials” [sic], the human rights project OVD Info reports.
In 1978, Skobov was arrested over his active involvement in the Left Opposition group and the samizdat publication of an anti-government magazine. He was later sentenced by the court to undergo treatment at a psychiatric hospital, from which he was released in the summer of 1987.
This time around, the political journalist was arrested on charges of “condoning terrorism.” Skobov was detained in St. Petersburg on 2 April 2024. In protest, the dissident refused to take with him to jail his diabetes medication and his glasses, despite his poor eyesight. According to the Telegram channel Memorial Support for Political Prisoners, the real reason for his arrest was “a [social media] post condoning the bombing of the Crimean Bridge.”
In early April, 66-year-old dissident Alexander Skobov was arrested for allegedly “justifying terrorism” in his posts online. For his friends and family members, the arrest came as no surprise.
Skobov, a long-time dissident who was made to spend seven years in a psychiatric ward after taking part in protests against the Soviet authorities in the 1970s, had published multiple posts condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine since 2014. In March he was named a “foreign agent”, and since then people close to him said his arrest had seemed inevitable.
“He and I talked a hundred times about the fact that he would be arrested — if not today then tomorrow,” said Skobov’s friend Yuly Rybakov, a human rights activist and former deputy in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. “People have been imprisoned for much less.”
Skobov’s 90-year-old mother, whom he lives with and cares for, said she had been having nightmares about his arrest for months before it happened, and Rybakov recalled that Skobov himself said he “didn’t understand” why the authorities hadn’t come for him yet.
Skobov’s children, who moved abroad long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, urged their father to flee the country when they saw him in Istanbul in early March. Other friends have also tried to convince him to leave and avoid arrest, citing his many health issues, including severe diabetes, hepatitis C, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and near blindness.
But, Rybakov said, Skobov was resolute, telling him that he “wanted to be part of his own judicial process” when he was inevitably arrested.
Rybakov said that Skobov had been “driven to despair” by what had been happening in Russia in recent years and “felt that someone had to be radical”.
Another friend, Mikhail Sedunov, said that trying to convince Skobov to change his course of action was like “grabbing the wing of a plane that was already accelerating down the runway”.
On 2 April, masked policemen arrived at Rybakov’s flat, where Skobov had been staying. When Rybakov left to take the dog for a walk, the police reportedly entered the property, threw Skobov to the ground, twisted his arms and handcuffed him. According to Rybakov, Skobov “defiantly” refused to take either warm clothing, his diabetes medication, or his glasses with him, intending these gestures as an “act of protest”.
Skobov’s wife, Olga Shcheglova, managed to buy him replacement medication and glasses, which she brought to him ahead of his interrogation by Russia’s Investigative Committee. But Skobov refused to accept them — a reaction Shcheglova said she had “expected” from her husband.
Resistance to the authorities and a fight for justice had defined Skobov’s life for more than four decades. His first foray into political activism was in 1976, when he and other university students in St. Petersburg scattered leaflets calling for the “establishment of true humane socialism” and the “overthrow of the tyranny of officials” ahead of a meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The students were expelled from university and brought before a court, and some, like Skobov, were then sentenced to compulsory treatment in psychiatric hospitals because, according to Rybakov, it was believed that “only crazy people could dislike the Soviet regime”.
Skobov’s radical spirit remained unquelled when he was finally released from hospital in 1981, however, and he immediately joined the Free Inter-Professional Association of Workers, a dissident group that led the first attempt to create an independent trade union in the USSR. In 1982 he was arrested for his involvement with the group and sent back to hospital, where he spent another three years.
In the early 1990s Skobov taught history at a secondary school for gifted students, writing and publishing his own award-winning textbooks. But later in the decade political activism again became the focal point of his life as he took part in protests against the Chechen wars.
When Russia annexed Ukraine in 2014, Skobov took to social media to rail against the regime, openly supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia’s military action. The same year, two unidentified men armed with knives attacked him outside his home in what his friends and family members say they are sure was retribution for his criticism of the regime.
Even this did not deter him, however, and his friends said his statements opposing Putin’s rule became “even sharper, more unrestrained, and more radical”. Speaking last year at the Free Russia Forum, an opposition conference held biannually in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Skobov condemned the regime more harshly than any of the other attendees, despite being one of the only participants still living in Russia.
Another friend of Skobov, Nikita Yeliseyev, said he doubted Skobov would survive the 7.5-year sentence that he is almost certain to receive.
“He is an old man,” Yeliseyev said. “And he has a number of very serious illnesses.”
Sedunov said all of Skobov’s actions stemmed from a desire to “struggle, as vigorously as possible, against the obvious evil represented by the current Russian government”.
“This is the way he was brought up: he wanted to fight evil any way he could. And this was the only way left,” Sedunov said.
Aleksandr Skobov has been a thorn in the side of authoritarian governments for more than four decades, from the Soviet era to President Vladimir Putin’s long rule. And now, in pretrial detention in St. Petersburg and facing prison, he is in no mood for compromise.
“On principle I refuse to comply with fascist laws,” he told RFE/RL late last month, shortly after the Russian government designated him a “foreign agent” on March 22. “I don’t intend to get into debates with the government. I will not try to prove my innocence. I will not label my writings, and I will not write any financial reports for them.”
“A criminal case could be launched at any moment,” he concluded.
He was right: On April 3, the 66-year-old was arrested and charged with “justifying terrorism” for a social-media post about the Ukrainian attacks that damaged the Crimea Bridge that links Russia with the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which Moscow occupied in 2014. The following day, a St. Petersburg court ordered Skobov held in pretrial detention for at least two months.
“If you take any of my articles or YouTube videos, you can find a whole bouquet of possible charges,” Skobov said in the March 31 interview. “Discrediting the army. Inciting hatred and enmity. Justifying terrorism. The rehabilitation of Nazism. I directly equate the actions of the Stalin regime with those of Hitler’s during World War II.”
Another reason for Skobov’s prosecution, his supporters believe, is his leadership role in the Free Russia Forum, a group of mostly exiled opposition figures founded by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and activist Ivan Tyutrin in 2016 that has been declared “undesirable” in Russia. If he is charged with participation in an “undesirable” organization, he could face up to six years in prison.
“I am a member of the forum’s council, and I regularly participate in its broadcasts,” Skobov told RFE/RL. “I help write its statements and official pronouncements. Several of them I have written myself. I am actively involved, and I do not intend to stop.”
Skobov said he was drawn to the group because “it was the only opposition organization that categorically rejected the idea of the peaceful transformation of Putin’s dictatorship toward democracy using the procedure established by that dictatorship.”
“It was the only organization that, beginning with the annexation of Crimea, unambiguously stood by Ukraine as a victim of aggression,” he added. “We try to help the Ukrainian Army and the Russian volunteer formations that are fighting with them.”
Writing on Facebook after Skobov’s arrest, writer and critic Mikhail Berg said Skobov suffered from “an unbearable fear of being afraid.”
“And that is why he chooses the most painful forms of criticizing the authorities,” he wrote. “He shouts even though the authorities have long been destroying people for whispering or even for just opening their mouths.”
Parallel Lives
Born in Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was called then, in 1957, Skobov participated in his first anti-government protest when he was 19. He and other members of an underground organization threw about 100 flyers calling for “humanistic socialism” from the roof of a downtown building on the eve of the 25th congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Several of the protesters were kicked out of their universities, but Skobov — a first-year history student at Leningrad State University — got off with a disciplinary meeting of the Komsomol youth group.
In October 1978, he was arrested for publishing an underground, anti-government magazine called Perspectives. He spent half a year in a KGB prison before being sentenced to forced psychiatric treatment.
“In the late 1970s and early 1980s, political prisoners in Soviet psychiatric hospitals were rarely forcibly medicated, although there were such cases, of course,” Skobov said. “But I was treated more or less OK. Most of the doctors that I encountered tried to avoid playing the role of executioners or stranglers.”
He spent three years in confinement.
In 1982, he was again sentenced to psychiatric treatment, this time for a samizdat article he wrote defending Chile’s former socialist president, Salvador Allende, who died in unclear circumstances in 1973, and criticizing the rightist dictator General Augusto Pinochet. That article was deemed “anti-Soviet propaganda.”
This time, Skobov spent five years in the hospital before being released in the summer of 1987 during the initial phase of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization campaign.
In many ways, Skobov and Putin led parallel lives during this period. Putin was born in Leningrad almost exactly five years before Skobov and studied at Leningrad State University just before him. But as Skobov became drawn into a life of opposition to authoritarianism, Putin joined the KGB secret police.
The president’s official biography insists that Putin always worked for the KGB’s First Directorate, which carried out counterintelligence operations. However, rumors have persisted for years that he worked for some time in the Fifth Directorate, which was responsible for suppressing internal dissent and prosecuting political dissidents. At the time, a senior figure in that department was Viktor Cherkesov, a longtime member of Putin’s inner circle who served as his deputy when he headed the Federal Security Service — the KGB successor organization — in the 1990s and who died in 2022.
In 2022, journalist and researcher Konstantin Sholmov published a photograph of a KGB archival document from 1976 that he said was on display at the Political History Museum in St. Petersburg. The document, a protocol of a search of the residence of Leningrad artist and dissident Oleg Volkov, named “Lieutenant Putin” as one of the officers carrying out the search.
In 2013, a series of photographs emerged showing a 1989 Leningrad protest during which KGB operatives roughly detained dissident Valery Terekhov. One of the men in the photograph resembles Putin. The Kremlin later denied that the man was Putin, saying the future president had already been sent to East Germany by 1989.
Prominent human rights activist Aleksandr Cherkasov of the banned rights group Memorial told the news outlet Agentstvo earlier this month that he believes Putin was involved in the investigation of Skobov. He said Skobov had told him Putin staked out his Leningrad apartment in November 1982 when prominent dissidents gathered to celebrate Skobov’s birthday.
Despite the danger growing around him after he was designated a “foreign agent,” Skobov refused to consider emigration.
“I’m not going to quit,” he said.
“Today anyone in Russia who disagrees with Putin’s Nazi regime is taking a risk,” he added, “even if he doesn’t really stick out or act publicly. Since the regime has already made the transformation from ‘hybrid totalitarian’ to totalitarian, it demands not just silence from its loyal subjects, but active participation. And even avoidance can be dangerous.”
Opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s suspicious death in prison on February 16 was “to be expected,” Skobov said.
“Navalny constantly laughed in [Putin’s] face, and a dictator cannot stand that,” he added. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be the last death of a political prisoner in Putin’s Russia.”
Anarchist and mathematician Azat Miftakhov has been sentenced to four years in a maximum security facility on criminal charges of “condoning terrorism.” The young man will spend the first two and a half years of his sentence in a closed prison. Miftakhov was detained in September 2023 as he was leaving the penal colony from which he had been released after completing his sentence on charges related to the breaking of a window at a United Russia party office. The next day he was remanded in custody in a pretrial detention center. According to the security forces, while watching TV with other inmates Miftakhov had spoken approvingly of the actions of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who bombed the FSB’s Arkhangelsk offices [in 2018].
Why do I need to know this? Miftakhov’s wife, Yelena Gorban, argues that this criminal case was launched by members of the security forces who wanted to “extend Azat’s sentence for his past political activity.” In her statement to the court, she said that her husband was aware of the dangers of wiretapping in the penal colony, and so he had avoided discussing political topics in the company of inmates. “The conspicuousness and brazenness with which they fake evidence doesn’t embarrass them. It even plays into their hands. It’s like they’re telling us, ‘It’s no trouble for us to put anyone away,'” the anarchist himself said in [his closing statement at the trial].
Source: It’s Been That Kind of Week newsletter (OVD Info), 30 March 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader
A video and audio recording of Azat Miftakhov’s closing statement at his trial and his sentencing, 28 March 2024, Yekaterinburg. Source: FreeAzat (Telegram), 31 March 2024
During the years I was imprisoned on the charges in previous criminal case, I failed to fall head over heels in love with the state, and now I again find myself in the dock. I am now on trial for what the security forces have deigned to call “condoning terrorism” by faking the evidence, as they did five years ago. The conspicuousness and brazenness with which they fake evidence doesn’t embarrass them. It even plays into their hands. It’s like they’re telling us, “It’s no trouble for us to put anyone away.”
We see the same brazenness in the numerous incidents of barbarous torture perpetrated by the regime’s guardians, the FSB. These guardians don’t care that their shameful deeds are made public. On the contrary, these deeds are flaunted as a source of pride. In this way, the state shows its terrorist nature, as anarchists pointed out before the previous presidential election by taking to the streets with the slogan “The FSB are the main terrorists.”
What we were saying back then has now become obvious not only in our country but all over the world. We how see how the [Russian] state’s entire foreign and domestic policy has become a conveyor belt of murder and intimidation. While fake witnesses attempt to prove the charges that I “condoned terrorism,” national TV channels broadcast calls for the mass murder of people who disagree with state policy. We see that the state, while paying lip service to combating terrorism, in fact seeks to maintain its monopoly on terror.
No matter how the Chekists try to intimidate civil society, we see even in these dark times people who find the courage to resist the terror that has spilled over the state’s borders. Risking their freedom and their lives, their actions awaken our society’s conscience, whose lack we now feel so acutely, and their steadfastness to the bitter end stands as an example for us all.
One such example for me was my friend and comrade Dmitry Petrov (aka Dima the Ecologist), who died defending Bakhmut from soldiers who had become tools of imperialism. I knew him as a fiery anarchist who, amidst a dictatorship, did everything he could to lead us to a society based on the principles of mutual aid and direct democracy.
As a graduate of the history program at Moscow State University and a PhD in history, he was well versed in the structure of society and was able to argue his position well, something I had always lacked. And yet he was not limited to theorizing but was also heavily involved in organizing the guerrilla movement, which did not escape the FSB’s notice. Because of this, he was forced to continue his work as an anarchist in Ukraine.
When the grim events of the last two years kicked off, he could not stay on the sidelines. An enterprising comrade, he sought to create an association of libertarian-minded people who would fight for the freedom of the peoples of Ukraine and Russia. Unfortunately, no war is without casualties, and Dima was one of them. It would be unjustifiably selfish of me to admire the selflessness of strangers alone and not to acknowledge the sacrifice of those who are personally dear to me. I am well aware of this, despite my regret that all my fellowship with him is now irrevocably a thing of the past.
And yet I find it hard to accept this loss. Knowing that he was one of the best of us, and wanting to do my best to ensure his sacrifice was not in vain, I have to recognize that my contribution will be insignificant compared to what he was capable of.
What I’ve just said was perhaps unexpected for some people. I cannot rule out that some of my supporters could be disappointed, as I find it difficult, to my own regret, to speak out publicly. Perhaps someone will disagree with my beliefs, which are at odds with pacifism.
Striving to be rational about everything, however, I reject a belief in things whose existence has not been proven. Among other things, I do not believe in the world’s justice. I do not believe that all evil will be punished as a matter of course. That’s why I support vigorously resisting evil and fighting for a better world for all of us.
But even if some of my supporters do not share all of my beliefs, I am still grateful for all of their help.
I am grateful to everyone who has written me letters full of warmth and good wishes. Even amidst the desolation of the penal colony, I received stacks of them almost every week. I am certain that such great attention to me was borne in mind by the people who set out to make me submissive. I find it quite pleasant and touching that people share a part of their lives with me, whether the experiences are joyful or sad. Every letter is very dear to my heart, and I read every single one of them.
Many thanks to all those who have supported me financially. Thanks to them I have never lacked anything during all the years of my imprisonment. There have been times when I have run out of money to support me, but as soon as I put out a call for help, within a few days people who cared about me brought my budget back to a comfortable level. This is very pleasant and impossible to forget. Special thanks to Vladimir Akimenkov, who for more than ten years has been organizing fundraisers to support political prisoners, including me.
I am extremely grateful to the activists in the FreeAzat and Solidarité FreeAzat collectives, who have organized campaigns and events in solidarity with me on a scale which boggles my mind. Your recent “1001 Letters” campaign was one of them. After reading all those letters, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that people in dozens of different countries are concerned about me. Thank you very much to everyone who was involved in this campaign, thus showing me how much you support me.
I am extremely grateful to mathematicians all over the world, and specifically to the Azat Miftakhov Committee, for supporting me on behalf of the mathematical community. I am very touched that people to whom I look up, whose scholarly prowess I dream of achieving someday, know about me and voice their solidarity.
Thank you very much to everyone who has spoken publicly about me. And special thanks to Mikhail Lobanov, who was forced to emigrate to France for vigorously supporting me. But even there, despite all the difficulties of exile, his solidarity with me has been as strong as ever.
Many thanks to the Russian activists, including those who don’t belong to collectives mentioned above, who have risked their comfort by showing solidarity with me while living under a dictatorship. I am very grateful to all who came to support me with their presence by attending the trial. Some of you traveled hundreds of kilometers for this purpose, and some of you did it more than once and more than twice. I was once again pleasantly surprised by such a huge attention to me.
Many thanks to all the honest members of the press who, through their work, have been helping the public to follow my trial.
I thank my defense counsel, Svetlana Sidorkina, for her dedication in defending me at my trials. I never cease to admire her professionalism and I am convinced that I am very lucky to have her. Finally, I would like to thank Lena, my main support in my tribulations. She has helped me through her dedication to overcoming all the difficulties of my imprisonment. On top of that, I am blessed to be in love with her.
As I finish my acknowledgements, I am left with the feeling that someone may have been overlooked. This is a consequence of the tremendous, steady support I have received since the moment of my arrest. I am pleased to see I am not the only one who has been the object of your support—that, despite the dark events of recent years, your solidarity knows no territorial boundaries. This is what gives me hope for a bright future for all of us.
Accused terrorist Shamsidin Fariduni, with bruising on his face, inside a Moscow courtroom. Photo: Yulia Morozova/Reuters via the New York Times
It seems that one of the consequences of this tragedy [i.e., the terrorist attack on the concert hall in suburban Moscow] has been the legalization, or legitimization, of torture. Torture existed before, but it was concealed and formally condemned. Now torture is openly praised and flaunted, and state institutions, including courts, do not react in any way. Another step towards fascization.
Warning: this newsletter contains numerous descriptions of violence and torture.
People are tortured every day in Russia. For a long time we have been hearing about torture in penal colonies and police departments from victims and human rights activists. Mops and electric shockers have been mentioned in reports in the independent media and in the accounts of people who were subjected to violence, but the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) and the police themselves have usually denied the accusations. Even in today’s Russia, however, the courts have periodically tried to imprison law enforcers who have tortured people, such as those implicated in the Karelian penal colony case, the Yaroslavl case, and the Saratov prison hospital case.
The terrorist attack in suburban Moscow has changed everything.
On 22 March, gunmen killed at least 137 people at the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow. They set fire to the building and left before the police arrived. Law enforcers have already detained suspects, and the Z bloggers have been salivating over the photos and videos of their abuse at the hands of the authorities. Never before have we had such flagrant acknowledgement of torture.
“The law enforcers have often covered their tracks by sweeping stories of torture under the rug, and we were told that there was no torture, that the reports were nonsense,” Sergei Babinets, head of the Crew Against Torture, said in an interview with Mediazona. “But since yesterday it seems as if there is a path to making torture a little more public.”
Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev (whom propagandist Margarita Simonyan dubbed the “ringleader” of the terrorists) was brought to his arraignment hearing with bruises on his face and remnants of a bag around his neck. He had no bruises at the time of his arrest, and the bag could have been used by law enforcers to strangle Mirzoyev. When the judge announced the pretrial restraint measures (Mirzoyev was remanded in custody to a pretrial detention center) Mirzoyev could not stand up. Instead, he leaned against the wall of the “fish tank” in the courtroom.
Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda was brought to the hearing with his head bandaged. A law enforcer had cut off his ear when he was detained and tried to make him eat it. Neo-Nazi Yevgeny “TopaZ” Rasskazov of the nationalist subversive group Rusich announced an auction for the knife that was allegedly used to cut off Rachabalizoda’s ear.
The third detainee, Shamsidin Fariduni, was also apparently tortured. Telegram channels associated with law enforcement circulated a photo of Fariduni lying on the ground with his pants pulled down and law enforcement officers standing over him. There are wires from a field telephone attached to his groin. Such wires are used to electrocute detainees. (They have been used, for example, on detained Ukrainians in the occupied territories.) And someone is also stepping on Fariduni with a foot shod in an army tactical boot. Fariduni arrived in court with a swollen and beaten face.
Finally, the fourth detainee, Muhammadsobir Faizov, came to the court from the intensive care unit in a wheelchair. He could barely speak, and was hooked up to a catheter and a urinal. One of his eyes was injured. For the duration of the hearing, his doctors—two women in ambulance corps uniforms who had arrived with Faizov—were asked to leave the courtroom.
Why is this happening? Sergei Babinets argues that law enforcers could have been affected by the absence of major terrorist attacks in recent years.
“Many people were simply not ready for it—not ready emotionally, not ready psychologically, not ready on various fronts. And people may have started to lose their nerve due to this. That’s why there have been calls to reinstate the death penalty, to locate all the guilty parties and execute them, for example,” he said.
Аccording to Babinеts, Russian aggression in Ukraine has also played a role.
“The normalization of violence may have aggravated the situation with torture. We can see that law enforcement officers are really starting to let themselves go more,” he said.
Babinets adds, however, that there is no point to this violence.
“Torture most often leads to the torturer obtaining the information he wanted to obtain initially,” he said. “If they want a person to confess that they had been working, for example, for the Ukrainian army, they can be tortured until they confess. It is impossible to effectively investigate crimes in this way.”
It’s more than two decades since I read the late Stanley Cohen’s ground-breaking States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering (2001). In the introduction, Cohen recalls his own experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa, when he asked himself why his own outrage at the injustice he observed all around was not reflected in the society around him:
Why did others, even those raised in similar families, school and neighbourhoods, who read the same papers, walked the same streets, apparently not “see” what we saw. Could they be living in another perceptual universe — where the horrors of apartheid were invisible and the physical presence of black people often slipped from awareness? Or perhaps they saw exactly what we saw, but just didn’t care or didn’t see anything wrong.
Cohen went on to become a sociologist and a lifelong human rights activist. States of Denial was a valiant attempt to bring his discipline to bear on the subject of why people become become ‘everyday bystanders’ of atrocities who ‘block out, shut off or repress’ troubling or disturbing information to the point when they ‘react as if they do not know what they know.’
Some of these observations related to Israel, where Cohen moved in 1980. A Zionist in his youth, Cohen opposed the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and became a strong critic of Israeli repression of the Palestinians. In his book, he describes his work with the Israeli human rights group B’Ttselemon the torture of Palestinian detainees and the obstacles it encountered:
Our evidence of the routine use of violent and illegal methods of interrogation was to be confirmed by numerous other sources. But we were immediately thrown into the politics of denial. The official and mainstream response was venomous: outright denial (it doesn’t happen); discrediting (the organization was biased, manipulated or gullible); renaming (yes, something does happen, but it is not torture); and justification (anyway ‘it’ was morally justified). Liberals were uneasy and concerned. Yet there was no outrage.
Cohen returned to the UK in 1996, and died in 2013, but were he alive today, I suspect he would have recognized the ongoing devastation of Gaza as a textbook example of the ‘politics of denial’. According to the latest figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the IDF has killed more than 31,988 people, most of whom are women and children, with another 7,000 buried in the rubble, and wounded 74,188. To put these figures in perspective, this February civilian casualties in Ukraine were estimated at 10,582 dead and 19,875 injured since the Russian invasion began on 24 February 2022.
So in just under six months, Israel has killed more civilians in Gaza than Russia has killed in two years. It has destroyed or damaged more than 60 percent of Gaza’s housing stock, 3 churches, 224 mosques, 155 health centres, 126 ambulances. Nearly 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and 1.1 million people are facing ‘catastrophic levels of food insecurity,’ which threatens to become a famine.
All this has been done with the indirect support or direct collusion of the United States government, the European Union, and the British government. Despite the outpouring of rage and horror on the streets of so many cities across the world, liberal democracies that claim to uphold an international order based on human rights and universal moral norms have ‘known and not known’ what has been taking place in front of their eyes.
Many of these governments once railed against ‘dictators killing their own people’, and used atrocities and human rights abuses as a moral lubricant for liberal ‘interventions’ and ‘ humanitarian’ wars to prevent ‘massacres’ and ‘bloodbaths.’ Apart from a few tepid words of condemnation, when the obscenity of what is unfolding became too much to ignore, these same governments have enabled Israel to inflict incredible carnage on a mostly unarmed and defenceless population.
None of is taking place in secret. In February, Amnesty claimed that ‘Fresh evidence of deadly unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip…demonstrates how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity.’ Israeli soldiers routinely post tweets and TikTok videos of themselves gleefully blowing up Palestinian homes, wearing Palestinian lingerie and women’s dresses, humiliating Palestinian prisoners made to strip down to their underwear, and generally exulting in the destruction.
During his closing statement in court today the documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev read a poem by Grigori Dashevsky:
1.
Across the river they’re making chocolate.
Out there the river-ice is breaking up.
And upriver we’re waiting, but for now
no bus comes, only its vacant ghost,
a desolate fleshless light flying ahead
to the engine’s howl
and the clatter of
the ad-slates changing.
We’re not cold, we bide our time.
The sky a deeper blue, the burning streetlights.
2.
To wait for each new minute as for a ghost,
to put on stage-paint for him alone,
to powder your face with light––and poorly it sticks,
but without it there’s nothing
to tell you apart: not from the many
faces—multitudes—
but from the lived-through years
which, like a star, are distant and weightless as smoke.
3.
But from the sweet smoke, the glory of heaven,
look up for a moment,
tear your eyes away as from a book:
As much as a star has its shining
or a factory its smoke,
all things have
their limit: a book’s gilded edges
or a band of cloud.
4.
And turned from weddings not my own, and graves,
not waiting for the end, I rose
and saw an enormous room, a hall,
walls, walls, Moscow, and I asked:
where is the light that lit these pages,
where is the wind that rustled them like leaves?
5.
It’s late to be asking: each person is lit bright,
thrown open to the right dream
for the minutes, like pupils widened,
unscathed, like smoke or sleep:
they fly in, gleam, collect a promise:
Remember, remember (take leave of) me.
“I don’t intend to speak for very long. Your Honor, I am in some sense a colleague of yours, since I’ve worked as a third-tier soccer referee; I understand that you’re in a tough situation, it’s hard to envy someone stuck in the middle of this whole business. But nevertheless I have always believed in people and will continue to do so, even when it makes absolutely no sense. In any case I know this is really hard for you, but I think you’ll figure it out.” (Vsevolod Korolev)
“To ask for ten years when the maximum is ten and given the absence of aggravating circumstances and the evidence of mitigating ones—this goes against the fundamental norms of the criminal code. And this demonstrates for the umpteenth time the invalidity and baselessness of the prosecution’s case.” ([Korolev’s defense] lawyer Maria Zyrianova)
Discourse journalist and documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev has been sentenced to a three-year prison term on charges of “disseminating fake news” about the army.
During the trial on March 18 defense lawyer Maria Zyrianova noted that the case file did not indicate what information in Korolev’s posts had been determined to be knowingly false. Korolev is accused of making two posts on [the Russian social media network] Vkontakte about the mass murders of civilians in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Borodianka, as well as about the shelling of Donetsk.
The prosecution requested a nine-year prison sentence for Korolev. This, notedDiscourse, was the longest prison term ever requested by state prosecutors for the charge of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army.
During the court hearing on March 20, bailiffs at St. Petersburg’s Vyborg District Court recorded the names of those who came to support Korolev, SOTA reports. Earlier, SOTA published a recording of a telephone conversation between the bailiffs, in which they announced their intention to provide the lists of those who came to the trial to Center “E” [the “counter-extremism” police].
The Case of Vsevolod Korolev
Vsevolod Korolev is a documentary filmmaker and poet. He worked as a correspondent for the culture magazine Discourse and made films on social themes — about children with disabilities and political prisoners.
Korolev was detained in July 2022. During the search, his electronic devices were confiscated.
The prosecutors argued that Korolev’s documentaries about the political prisoners Maria Ponomarenko and Alexandra Skochilenko should be deemed an aggravating circumstance.
Linguistic expertise in the case was provided by linguist Alla Teplyashina and political scientist Olga Safonova from the Center for Expertise at St. Petersburg State University.
One of the prosecution’s witnesses later recanted their testimony.
In his closing statement at the trial, Korolev quoted a poem by Grigori Dashevsky: “It’s late to be asking: each person is lit bright, / thrown open to the right dream / for the minutes, like pupils widened, / unscathed, like smoke or sleep: / they fly in, gleam, collect a promise: / Remember, remember (take leave of) me.“
Memorial has designated Korolev a political prisoner.
You can support Vsevolod Korolev by sending him a letter to the following address:
196655 St. Petersburg, Kolpino, Kolpinskaya Street, 9, FKU SIZO-1, Vsevolod Anatolyevich Korolev (born 1987)
Source: “Discourse journalist Vsevolod Korolev sentenced to three years for ‘fakes’ about the army,” DOXA, 20 March 2024. Translated by the Fabulous AM and the Russian Reader. People living outside of Russia will find it difficult or impossible to send letters to Russian prisons via regular mail or using online prison correspondence services such as FSIN-Pismo. In many cases, however, you can send letters (which must be written in Russian or translated into Russian) to Russian political prisoners via the free, volunteer-run service RosUznik. You can also write to me (avvakum@pm.me) for assistance and advice in sending such letters.||| TRR
Vsevolod Korolev