The 45-year-old resident of the Tatarstan capital with the exotic first name and surname and the patronymic Petrovich has four prior criminal convictions
Holy Week has kicked off for a Kazan defendant with a quite uncommon name: Jesus Christ. The 45-year-old Kazan resident has been charged with falsely registering forty-five migrant workers at his address. Jesus Petrovich has prior repeat convictions for burglary and robbery, and in 2014 he underwent preventive care for substance abuse. Business Online reports on Christ’s failure to appear at his court hearing, and the “way of the cross” he has blazed through Kazan’s district courts.
This photo by Business Online reporter Eva Malinovskaya appears in her original article, but it is impossible to say whether it was taken at Jesus Petrovich Christ’s abortive court hearing in Kazan on Good Friday 2025.
Jesus Petrovich’s “Good Friday”
The biography of Kazan’s latest criminal defendant would not be too different from the average person’s — the divorced and unemployed high school graduate will turn forty-six on the tenth of May — were it not for one catch. His name is Jesus Christ: that is the name listed in his [internal] passport.
The story of how he got the name remains a mystery: neither the court staff nor the state prosecutor know what Christ’s name at birth was. All that the people involved in the criminal proceedings know is that the defendant was “obsessed” with numerology, and this led, allegedly, to his decision to change his name and surname several years ago. He kept only his real patronymic: Petrovich.
Christ was scheduled to appear before the Moscow District Court (the Kizichevsky Vvedensky Monastery is situated right next door to the court building on Justice Street ). The current case against Jesus Petrovich is an anniversary of sorts: he has four prior criminal convictions, having blazed a trail through the city’s district courts on his own “way of the cross.”
Jesus was first convicted in 1994 by the Lenin District Court (now the Aviastroitelny District Court) of robbery, per Article 145.2 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. He was given a two-year suspended sentence. Since his next conviction, for theft, per Article 144.2 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, was handed down by the Novo-Savinovsky District Court, he was given the standard sentence: two and a half years in a medium-security correctional labor colony and confiscation of his property.
After serving his sentence, Christ did not enjoy his freedom for long. In 1999, he appeared before the Volga Regional Court, where he was sentenced to nine years in prison per Article 162.3.g of the Russian Federal Criminal Code, for “robbery committed by a person previously convicted two or more times of theft or extortion.” The convict was sent to a maximum security penal colony and was released in 2007. A little more than a year passed before Christ again came before the Lenin District Court, which by then had been redubbed the Aviastroitelny District Court. He was sentenced to another three years in prison per Article 158.3.a of the Russian Federal Criminal Code, for “theft involving home invasion.”
In addition to his criminal record, Christ had a penchant for illegal substances. From 2014, he was registered with a substance abuse therapist, but not for long, according to his personal file, as submitted to the court. In 2015, a forensic psychiatric expert commission found that Jesus had an organic personality disorder, and he was removed from the substance abuse registry. His mental illness had been triggered by a severe head trauma received in 2010. At the time, Christ did not complete his treatment, leaving the hospital on his own. He was also diagnosed with brain malfunction due to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and was thus registered as a class III disabled person.
During his last clinical examination, psychiatrists noted the patient’s irritability, brashness, inflated self-esteem, pretentiousness, egotism, and mood swings. Although Jesus’ truculent personality was palpable, it was not significant enough to warrant hospitalization, so his diagnosis was not a factor in the criminal investigation.
The charges
What is Christ accused of this time round? According to police, whose account has been corroborated by the prosecutor’s office, between April and December 2024, Christ registered forty-five foreign nationals as residing in his 31.9-square-meter flat. With the consent of the foreigners, Jesus filled out foreign national residential arrival notices in which he identified himself as their host and provided the address of his flat. He then submitted arrival notices to the Moscow District office of the Tatarstan Multifunctional Public Services Center.
The prosecution is certain that the foreigners did not reside at their registered address. The false information about the arrival of forty-five individuals, as received by the migration department of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Kazan office, was registered and entered into the federal migration registration database. Christ faces up to five years in prison.
“The case is quite ordinary. [Police officers] examine the Multifunctional Public Services Center’s identification numbers and files and identify violators,” said assistant prosecutor Nadezhda Moshkova in a conversation with Business Online before the court hearing.
Common practice in such cases
Such cases are not uncommon. There were several such cases in a row in February alone. Six Tatarstan residents and a foreigner were charged with organizing the illegal immigration and falsified registration of more than three thousand foreigners. Later in the month, three more cases of unlawful employment agreements, involving two thousand migrant workers, were uncovered, and on February 26 it transpired that another resident of Kazan had aided almost three thousand immigrants in registering illegally. So the list of Christ’s “apostles” is not that long compared to those of others.
“Has Jesus Christ stopped by?” the assistant judge asked hopefully over the phone exactly one minute before the start of the trial.
“No, he hasn’t,” the bailiff replied with a grin.
The mood of the people in the courtroom was upbeat, despite the fact that the “appearance” of Christ before the Moscow District Court did not take place. Moshkova assured the court that the defendant had been notified in every possible way, but she herself, even before the hearing, had not actually believed that he would show up. “He’s a curious chap,” the assistant prosecutor said, adding that defendants themselves do not like to appear at such hearings, and jokingly condoned Christ by saying that Easter had not yet arrived.
The accused himself, as it turned out, had no clue about the hearing.“What case? And wait, if a court hearing has been scheduled, why the fuck was a notification and a summons not sent?!” said a perplexed Christ, whom Business Online was able to reach by telephone. After voicing his indignation, our source asked us to leave him alone. “I have done twenty years in prison. You’ve got the wrong number, good luck,” concluded Jesus.
Nevertheless, court-appointed defense lawyer Ksenia Matveeva told us that the defendant fully admits his guilt. He had even requested expedited consideration of the case, but because of his failure to appear, the process had to be postponed to the end of May.
“I order that the defendant be forcibly delivered to the next court hearing,” the presiding judge, Nikolai Zakharov said as he concluded the proceedings. “No one has ever walked away from the court yet,” he said, shrugging.
A 45-year-old Russian national named Jesus Petrovich Christ has gone on trial in Kazan for fictitiously registering foreigners in his apartment. Information on the upcoming court hearing was posted on the website of the city’s Moscow District Court.
The defendant fictitiously registered forty-four illegal immigrants in his one-room apartment, in violation of Article 322.3 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. In fact, [none of the immigrants] lived in the apartment. Christ did not appear in court, so the hearing of his case did not take place.
According to law enforcers, Jesus Petrovich Christ has four previous convictions — for robbery, armed robbery, and theft.
According to local media, the defendant was given a different name at birth, but he changed his first name and surname after becoming interested in numerology. The man’s patronymic is real.
A Russian citizen named Jesus Petrovich Christ is being tried in Kazan on charges of fictitiously registering immigrants. A notice of the upcoming court hearing appeared on the website of Kazan’s Moscow District Court.
A screenshot of Jesus Petrovich Christ’s court hearing record on the website of Kazan’s Moscow District Court, courtesy of Sergey Abashin
Jesus Christ is suspected of fictitiously registering forty-five illegal immigrants in his one-room apartment, in violation of Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 322.3. Despite receiving a summons to appear in court, the 45-year-old Russian national did not show up for the proceedings, and therefore the hearing of the case did not take place.
It is also known that the man was previously convicted several times — in 1994 and 1996, for robbery; in 1999, for armed robbery; and in 2007, for theft.
There is another reason why the Russian Defense Ministry recruits so many members of ethnic minorities [to fight in the war against Ukraine]: as it turns out, because it is psychologically really difficult for [ethnic] Russians to kill Ukrainians. Because we are one people. We are very close peoples, as everybody knows. We have nearly the same language, the same religion, and centuries of history in common. But if it’s someone from another culture, allegedly it’s easier [for them to kill Ukrainians]. I hadn’t really thought about it before. I thought the reasons were primarily economic. But after what [a colleague who spoke about the Buryats] said, I started thinking about it too.
A screenshot of the video Ms. Khazagaeva cites in her Facebook post
You did get that, friends? It’s so difficult, so unbearable for ethnic Russians to kill you Ukrainians that Buryats and Chechens have been doing all the work for them — because [Buryats and Chechens] are beasts and savages. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
By the way, [Kara-Murza] refers to Buryats and Chechens as “those ethnic minorities.”
In other words, all eleven years [of Russia’s war against Ukraine], the Buryats, who number under four hundred and fifty thousand people, including children and the elderly, have been attempting to kill the forty million Ukrainians. It transpires, however, that the hundred million ethnic Russians have had it “psychologically difficult” all those eleven years. They are mere victims of this war, which is something “those [other] ethnic groups” want. Don’t get them wrong: ethnic Russians love you Ukrainians like brothers!
You have explained everything so clearly, Mr. Kara-Murza. I have literally just a couple of follow-up questions. Excuse me, has it also been the Buryats who have been launching missiles at Ukrainian cities? And the creatures who on Russian television rejoice at the deaths of Ukrainian children in Kryvyi Rih, are they also members of these same ethnic minorities?
I’m sorry, but I have another question. The whole world knows what the Pskov paratroopers did in Bucha. Do you have any ideas how to repaint them as Buryats? Although it would probably be a bit difficult, since “your lads” have already been testifying.
One more question. The other day, 7 April, was the thirtieth anniversary of the Samashki massacre. Eighty people, mostly children, women and old people, were burned alive in Samashki, and hundreds of people were killed in total. This is not to mention the forty thousand Chechen children killed in the two [Chechen] wars. Excuse me, did the Chechens shell themselves? Ethnic Russians are totally incapable of that, aren’t they? To hell with what Tolstoy wrote in Hadji Murat. Tolstoy was a renegade.
Oh, I’ve gotten a little carried away. Two million people were killed in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They say that’s where the notorious practice of “mopping up” villages, leaving mass graves in their wake, originated. I’m sorry, who did the killing in Afghanistan? Was that the Buryats too?
Good Lord, where do you get so many of them?
The only thing I don’t understand is how the idea of the “Russian world” could have emerged, since you ethnic Russians live in love and friendship with all countries. It must have been the Chukchi who overdid it on that front.
I also don’t understand why it is the ethnic Russians who do ballet, but it is the non-Russians who make war.
Updated, 13 April. I have replaced the picture originally below the post with a video featuring the entire quotation by Kara-Murza. Thanks to the good people who provided the AI translation. It shows that Kara-Murza’s words, whether presented in expanded or abridged form, bear the same message: ethnic Russians don’t want to kill Ukrainians, and it’s easier for non-Russians to do it. Because we ethnic Russians and the Ukrainians are one and the same, but we’re not the same as those non-Russians. It matters not a whit that Kara-Murza referenced someone else’s observation. What matters is that he voiced this idea personally and voluntarily, and that he confirmed his commitment to it by saying that it has given him pause for thought too. Think about it. A Russian politician (as Kara-Murza fancies himself), while visiting the parliament of a major European country, says that it is mainly Buryats who want the war. He says this on the record in a place where every word uttered potentially has legal force. He said it not in a bar, not on a beach, but in the French Senate, where decisions on sanctions are made.
I have not emended the text of my original post, dated 12 April.
On 10 April 2025, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heard the testimony of Vladimir Kara-Murza, vice-president of the Free Russia Foundation and a former Russian political prisoner. A Russian politician and opponent of Vladimir Putin, Kara-Murza survived two poisoning attempts, in 2015 and 2017. In April 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony by the Russian justice system after criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He was released on 1 August 2024 in a prisoner exchange. In his testimony to the senators, he stressed the autocratic and violent nature of Putin’s regime. He called on the European Union to maintain its sanctions against Russia, and to bring its weight to bear on peace negotiations in Ukraine. He maintains the hope that the country will soon become democratic.
This week’s edition of BBC Radio 4’s obituaries program featured appreciations of the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky and the composer Sofia Gubaidulina. ||| TRR
Oleg Gordievsky, Renee Goddard, Professor Richard Fortey, Sofia Gubaidulina
Matthew Bannister on Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB agent who defected to Britain and became a valued source of secret intelligence during the 1970s and 80s.
Renee Goddard, the actress and TV commissioner who fled Nazi persecution only to be interned in Britain.
Professor Richard Fortey, the palaeontologist who used his expertise in trilobites to tell stories about the origins of life on earth. Bill Bryson pays tribute.
Sofia Gubaidulina, the composer whose large scale religious works attracted criticism from the Soviet authorities.
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road is a stunning drive located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, regarded as one of the best motorcycling roads in central California.
Where is the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road?
The road is located in Monterey County, in the US state of California, running across the eastern slope of the Santa Lucia range within Los Padres National Forest.
As for sources—sure, we could lace every article with footnotes and hyperlinks, but let’s be real: a name and a citation don’t mean much in a world where half of Washington is reading scripts written by billionaires and lobbyists. Sources can be biased, corrupt, cherry-picked, or outright fabricated, and if you need proof of that, just look at the gibbering circus act that is the modern Republican Party. These are people who think “alternative facts” are a valid concept and that the guy who bankrupted a casino somehow knows how to fix the economy. You think they care about good sourcing?
Besides, bogging our writing down with a mess of citations and academic formalities would wreck the flow faster than a Senate hearing on TikTok. Our job isn’t to hand-hold people through a bibliography—we’re here to tell the story as it is, from the trenches, with all the blood, chaos, and absurdity intact. If you want a research paper, head to JSTOR. If you want the truth with its teeth bared, you’re in the right place.
It’s telling that Closer to the Edge is clueless about the egregious circumstances of Skobov’s actual trial. They paint a vivid picture of Skobov confronting the judges and other shameless Putinist law enforcement officials directly in the courtroom: “On March 21, 2025, the 67-year-old Soviet-era dissident walked into a Russian courtroom, stared down the agents of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship, and set himself ablaze in words.”
“Armogedon Dasha,” Kronstadt, Russia, summer 2006. Photo by the Russian Reader
If one starts from the premise that the United States was engaged in a peace process, then what we saw Americans do yesterday makes no sense. The same goes if we begin from the assumption that present American leadership is concerned about peace generally, or cares about American interests as such. But it is not hard to see another logic in which yesterday’s outrages do come into focus.
It would go like this: It has been the policy of Musk-Trump from the beginning to build an alliance with Russia. The notion that there should be a peace process regarding Ukraine was simply a pretext to begin relations with Russia. That would be consistent with all of the publicly available facts. Blaming Ukraine for the failure of a process that never existed then becomes the pretext to extend the American relationship with Russia. The Trump administration, in other words, ukrainewashed a rapprochement with Russia that was always its main goal. It climbed over the backs of a bloodied but hopeful people to reach the man that ordered their suffering. Yelling at the Ukrainian president was most likely the theatrical climax to a Putinist maneuver that was in the works all along.
This, of course, might also seem illogical, and at an even higher level. The current American alliance system is based upon eighty years of trust and a network of reliable relationships, including friendships. Supporting Russia against Ukraine is an element of trading those alliances for an alliance with Russia. The main way that Russia engages the United States is through constant attempts to destabilize American society, for example through unceasing cyberwar. (It is telling that yesterday the news also broke that the United States has lowered its guard against Russian cyber attacks.) Russian television is full of fantasies of the destruction of the United States. Why would one turn friends into rivals and pretend that a rival is a friend? The economies of American’s present allies are at least twenty times larger than the Russian economy. And Russian trade was never very important to the United States. Why would one fight trade wars with the prosperous friends in exchange for access to an essentially irrelevant market? The answer might be that the alliance with Russia is preferred for reasons that have nothing to do with American interests.
In the White House yesterday, those who wished to be seen as strong tried to intimidate those they regarded as weak. Human courage in defense of freedom was demeaned in the service of a Russian fascist regime. American state power was shifted from the defense of the victim to the support of the aggressor. All of this took place in a climate of unreason, in which actual people and their experiences were cast aside, in favor of a world in which he who attacks is always right. Knowledge of war was replaced by internet tropes, internalized to the point that they feel like knowledge, a feeling that has to be reinforced by yelling at those who have actually lived a life beyond social media. A friendship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a masculine bond of insecurity arising from things that never happened, became more important than the lives of Ukrainians or the stature of America.
There was a logic to what happened yesterday, but it was the logic of throwing away all reason, yielding to all impulse, betraying all decency, and embracing the worst in oneself on order to bring out the worst in the world. Perhaps Musk, Trump, and Vance will personally feel better amidst American decline, Russian violence, and global chaos. Perhaps they will find it profitable. This is not much consolation for the rest of us.
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on Zelensky’s voyage to Washington, D.C. (March 1, 2025)
Leader of the neo-Nazi regime Zelensky’s visit to Washington D.C. on February 28 is an epic political and diplomatic failure of the Kiev regime.
The Russian Side has repeatedly made it clear at all levels that Zelensky is a corrupt individual who lost his grip on reality and is unable to reach and honour agreements.
The Kiev regime refused to continue talks on a political and diplomatic settlement in the spring of 2022, using lies and fake claims to justify continued hostilities and keep receiving Western military and financial aid.
With his outrageously rude behaviour during his stay in Washington, Zelensky re-affirmed his status of the most dangerous threat to the international community as an irresponsible figure that can stir up a big war. It must be clear to everyone that this kind of attacks coming from a terrorist leader are quite unambiguous.
This cynical individual will stoop to anything in pursuit of his goals and is obsessed with preserving the power he has usurped. That is why he:
has destroyed the opposition,
built a totalitarian state,
ruthlessly sending millions of his fellow citizens to death.
Under the increasingly deteriorating political situation, this figure is unable to show a sense of responsibility and is therefore obsessed with continuing the war and rejects peace, which means death to him.
Unprecedented in history of international politics and diplomacy, a dressing down given to Zelensky by the US president in the White House is also indicative of the political weakness and extreme moral degradation of the European leaders who continue to support the maniac head of the Nazi regime who has lost touch with reality.
As before, we continue to operate on the premise that a truly just and durable peace is not possible unless the root causes of the Ukraine crisis are completely eliminated.
The main ones among them include:
the West breaking its promises not to expand NATO and the alliance’s absorption of Europe’s entire geopolitical space all the way up to Russia’s borders,
the Kiev regime’s systematic elimination of everything about Russia, including language, culture, and church, just like the German Nazis did in the past.
The demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well as recognition of existing realities on the ground remain Russia’s unchanged objectives.
The sooner Kiev and the European capitals come to realise this, the closer to a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis we will be.
Rick Wilson: “And I truly believe that Donald Trump will very soon offer military aid to Russia. I believe this in my heart of hearts. I want every single one of you people who think, ‘Oh, this was such a brave moment of diplomacy,’ when Donald Trump starts offering Russia intelligence, and weapons, and support, and protection, I want you to tell me if you think you still live in the America you voted for.”
— I read about your wedding to Yana last year. Tell me, are you happy?
— Yes. But happy in what sense? I don’t feel like I’m in a happy period in my life as a human being. But I’m very happy with Yana. We didn’t even plan to get married: we just had to get married for the paperwork. We are now traveling a lot between countries and applying for visas, and it’s much easier to explain why Yana has to travel with me and I with her by showing them a marriage certificate than by telling them a long story about how we’re from Russia, where gay marriage doesn’t exist. Anyway, we got married, and it as if nothing has changed in our lives: we love each other just as much, and we have the same joint budget.
But the morning after the wedding, I woke up and looked at Jana and realized that she really drives me crazy.
And then Yana woke up and started looking at me funny. Basically, we went around for a week looking daggers at each other, and then we went to psychotherapists, each to her own, and found out that, despite the fact that getting married was a purely formal act to us, it meant a lot to our subconscious minds. That’s why all kinds of shit had started to come out of our heads, which had been building up there all our lives, as it transpired.
For example, after we got married, Yana suddenly moved from the category of “my lady love” to the category of “my family.” I have completely different requirements for my family. Yana looked at me and thought, “I never wanted to get married. Marriage is a trap, it’s the worst thing that can happen.” Because of her family history, she had come to the opinion that there was basically nothing worse than marriage. When we realized what was coming out of us, we just talked to each other and calmed down. Everything fell into place. Now my therapist says we should definitely learn to fight because it’s a good way to find a new common ground, to talk about things, to release emotions. We just haven’t fought yet.
— How many years have you been together?
— Three years. We’ve argued, we’ve been pissed at each other sometimes, but we’ve never really fought. My therapist says this is potentially the weakest point in our marriage, because people in real families should fight and yell at each other periodically. I agree with her. My sister and I or my mom and I sometimes yell at each other so hard that glass shatters. So now we’re learning how to fight.
— Don’t you think that the very fact that you were able to get married is a privilege for people from Russia?
— Of course I do. There is a huge number of people living in Russia who are no less deserving than me and who cannot get married because of their orientation. Of course, it’s very unfair. I’m aware of that, and I’m very grateful to the people who have given their lives, among other things, to make it possible for me to have a same-sex marriage in the United States and for that marriage to be recognized around the world by countries which agree on the simple fact that all people are equal and all people have the right to a family.
— You don’t feel guilty about that?
— No, because I remember that my goal hasn’t changed.
My goal is to get married on Red Square.
I believe that it will happen sooner or later. Every person should have the right to a family, every person should have the right to call their loved one a relative. This, by the way, should not necessarily be bound up with sexual orientation or gender identity. I think a lot about single women or men for whom the most important person in their life is a male or female friend with whom they would like to share a household, bequeath property to them, and identify them as their nearest and dearest. That is, the very mechanism of civil partnerships would be useful not only for LGBT people.
— In interviews you gave long ago, you said that people in Russia generally didn’t care who you slept with. Has propaganda succeeded in turning LGBTQ+ people into enemies?
— I’m not in Russia at the moment, so I can’t see what is happening there now. But I am glad that for every snitch and provocateur who goes to a gay club to turn people in to the cops, there are hundreds of people who know that their friends, brothers and sisters, and coworkers are not hetero- or cisgender people, and yet do not go to the authorities and snitch on them. But of course this is a very difficult time, because, pardon the expression, all sorts of scum who derive power and joy from the fact that they can take away another person’s life feel quite free and easy in Russia now, because a group of people with whom they can do as they pleased has been pointed out to them, and the state will only pat them on the heads for doing it.
Protestors at Christopher Street Park pose for a photo. Photo: S. Baum/Erin in the Morning
This weekend at Stonewall, trans pasts and trans futures collided. The crowd of over 300 people at Christopher Street Park cheered on as the two kids took the stage, all smiles as they were wrapped in the pink, white and blue. They were led by Denise Norris, co-founder of The Transexual Menace, a direct action group which began organizing against trans exclusion in 1993.
In 1969, the Stonewall uprising spilled out from the iconic gay bar and into the streets — including that same park, a small patch of pavement and grass across the road. Many see this as the birthplace of the LGBTQ liberation movement as we know it today.
Now, a new generation has joined the fight.
“Even in our middle school, which supposedly accepts everyone, we face hate from many of our classmates,” one of the kids told the crowd.
They passed the mic to their friend. “They’re saying, ‘Oh, this school is progressive. And we don’t stand up for hate, and homophobia, and transphobia,’” the other youngster added. “Well, maybe they should do something about it.”
But Saturday’s rally was living proof of trans histories, resilience and joy. One protestor held a sign reading: “We are older than your laws and we will outlive them. There are queer and trans kids, adults and elders in the future.”
People gathered at Christopher Street Park in New York City to protest the Trump Administration’s repression of trans people on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: S. Baum/Erin in the Morning
The area in and around Stonewall, including the park, was incorporated into the National Parks Service in 2016 as a historical monument of the West Village enclave where trans, queer and gender nonconforming youth made their home for decades. But after Trump’s return to office, even the NPS webpage for Stonewall saw the word “transgender” removed.
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal,” the new website now reads, the “T” conspicuously missing. “The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights.”
Norris spoke about organizing the event within her own intergenerationally trans family, including her nephew, Garrett. Now in his twenties, Garrett is working with his aunt to cultivate a national network, encouraging trans people and their allies everywhere to take autonomous action.
“If you don’t want to be transgressive, if you’re not here to make the systemic change that we need in this society so trans people have space to be equal — not merely acceptable — you might as well be the ‘transgender happy friends,’” Norris told Erin in the Morning at the rally. “The battle is not about if we are going to be passable or acceptable to the oppressor. It doesn’t matter if you’re ‘passing,’ they’re still going to come for you.”
The Transexual Menace, whose blood-stained logo is a campy, tongue-in-cheek nod to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” cut its teeth mobilizing against trans exclusion from queer spaces and causes in the 1990s. Where some gay and lesbian organizations sought to align themselves with more white, heteronormative, upper class sensibilities, the Transexual Menaces — “Stone Butch Blues” author Leslie Feinberg among them — refused to center respectability politics in their actions, Norris said.
At the rally, speakers showcased a tour de force of trans life spanning generations. Dr. Carla Smith, CEO of The NYC LGBT Community Center, told the crowd how she brought along her wife and grandchild. Jay Walker, a founding member of groups like the Reclaim Pride Coalition and Gays Against Guns, led the protestors in chants. Bernie Wagenblast, the much-beloved voice of New York City subways, was also spotted among the masses.
“We’re criminalizing trans people for existing and decriminalizing those that commit actual crimes, like Donald Trump and his 1,500 insurrectionists,” Toress said in her speech.
She could be heard from outside the metal gates of Christopher Street Park, which are adorned with archival images of trans and gender nonconforming youth — smiling, hugging, protesting. It was these street queens and butches of color that are said to have “thrown the first brick at Stonewall,” a common phrase used to characterize the much-mythologized riots. Protestors left bricks beneath the photographs in their honor.
Today, there was one happy man in the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin banked his legacy on an all-out war that, at one point, looked all but lost for him. But he waited long enough to see the tides change in his favor.
Three years in and hundreds of thousands of deaths after, the U.S. president is calling Putin, offering peace talks on Russia’s terms.
Hi, my name is Oleksiy Sorokin, I’m the deputy chief editor of the Kyiv Independent, and this is the latest issue of our Russia-themed newsletter.
Today we will talk about how Russia is about to win the war.
It’s a topic of debate when authoritarian Russia began morphing into a totalitarian state, but Feb. 24, 2022, is a point that finalized this transformation. A point of no return.
The all-out war was supposed to be quick. It was supposed to be a victory of a new world order and of a new Russia, once again a force that would decide the fate of the world, a force that people would fear.
Taking Kyiv, installing a new Russian-controlled government, and forcing Ukraine to recognize Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk as Russian was to be achieved within months, if not days.
The country Putin attempted to subjugate, however, was fiercely resisting. Something that Russian political and military leadership didn’t expect and didn’t prepare for.
Yet, over and over, Russian President Putin was bailed out by the West.
In 2022, Russia was making fortunes on selling off its energy resources to the West. When Russian troops were murdering civilians of Mariupol and nearing Kyiv, Moscow’s war chest was being replenished by Europeans.
The slow phasing out of Russian energy resources in the West allowed Russia to iron out its pivot to the East, building a formidable shadow fleet to transport its energy resources to anyone willing to buy.
When Russia began to lose ground and prepare for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the U.S. was slowing down military shipments, giving Moscow further breathing room.
Seeing that the West was unwilling to support Ukraine to the fullest and was willing to allow Russia to continue, Russia, well, continued.
Russian leadership doubled down, increasing attacks on Ukraine, making committing war crimes a state policy, and simultaneously choking all forms of dissent at home.
Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war were tortured and often murdered, and children from occupied territories were abducted.
Domestically, Russia outlawed speaking against the war, with people receiving hefty prison terms for criticising the invasion.
For the majority, however, the state made sure their economic well-being and daily routines remained unchanged, allowing ignorance to flourish. The Russian economy was doing fine.
All this made Putin confident. He knew that time played in his favor. The U.S. would surrender, and Europe would be in no position to object. He was right.
While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump had made it clear that he has little interest in continuing to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
His comments of ending the war in “24 hours” were a figure of speech, but it was clear that some sort of peace plan would be presented by the incoming administration.
Russia listed its demands, Ukraine listed theirs. Both waited. The fighting went on along the front line.
Russia was in a better position to negotiate. The West’s unwillingness to truly stop Russia, especially if it meant causing any sort of inconvenience at home, allowed it to regroup and begin a major offensive, ongoing to this day.
What came next was too good to be true… for Russia.
On Feb. 11, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began his European tour. Off the bat, he made public the U.S. position concerning the upcoming peace talks.
Hegseth said, “Returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” and that NATO membership for Ukraine is not an option, effectively agreeing with Russia’s demands.
Then, Trump called Putin.
“We both reflected on the great history of our nations and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people,” said Trump following the call, parroting the Kremlin’s favorite line of the huge sacrifice Russia undertook in a war that ended 80 years ago, and how it is for whatever reason relevant today.
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of ‘common sense’,” Trump added.
“We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations. We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation,” he went on.
The next day, Trump proposed to return Russia to G7, the intergovernmental political forum of the most developed democratic countries from which Moscow was kicked out following the start of its war in 2014.
Russian officials and pro-war public figures were openly excited about Trump’s moves.
“The movement that has begun is the result of the heroic work of our fighters and the principled position of Vladimir Putin, who speaks of openness to negotiations but firmly defends Russia’s national interests,” said lawmaker Evgeniy Revenko, deputy head of Putin’s United Russia party.
“Zelensky’s days are numbered, and Trump’s arrival at the Victory Parade in Moscow no longer seems like a fantasy,” he added.
“The phone call between Putin and Trump will go down in the history of world politics and diplomacy. It is not a breakthrough yet, but perhaps the first step towards one. I am sure that in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris, and London, they read Trump’s lengthy commentary on his conversation with Putin with horror and cannot believe their eyes,” said Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Mr. Pushkov.
Following the call, the Kremlin said, “We, of course, understand that our main counterpart in this process is Washington.”
And here we are today. It took three years, but Russia is where it wanted to be from the start — at a table with the U.S. deciding the fate of the world without the world’s consent.
Putin will push for more, seeking to squeeze the most out of Washington, and give nothing in return.
Russia would demand to keep the territories it controls, and most likely try to take the ones it doesn’t. According to Russia’s new constitution, Russia sees Ukrainian Crimea, and four oblasts — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — as its own. Russia doesn’t have full control of any of the four.
With NATO off the table, other demands might be thrown at Trump, reducing Kyiv’s army or legalizing Russian language and influence in Ukraine.
Whether the U.S. will agree, and most importantly, whether Kyiv and the EU will go by the agreements that Moscow and Washington are set to achieve behind their backs, remains to be seen. There’s a strong chance that they won’t.
But overall, the sun is now much brighter for Putin than it was just a few days ago.
Eleven years of fighting against Ukraine, three years of all-out war and thousands of war crimes committed, Putin isn’t a pariah anymore. His worldview is on track to become mainstream, and it’s the leader of the free world who is leading him back to the table.
Russians refuse to sell insulin and other vital medicines to Ukrainians without Russian passports, reports Ukrainian intelligence (Ukrainska Pravda, February 7th)
How can Ukraine solve the problem of documents from the occupied territories? Human rights defenders share their vision with international partners (Zmina, February 7th)
A janitor, a cook, an informer — who is being tried for collaborating with the enemy? (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 6th)
Russian FSB carry out new terror raids and arrests by quota in occupied Crimea (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 6th)
Human rights and humanitarian legal norms: 2024 review (Crimea Human Rights Group, 5 February)
Viktor Dzytsiuk was almost tortured to death in occupied Donbas. Now Russia is continuing his torment (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 5th)
ZMINA took part in a discussion on the cultural decolonisation of Crimea (Zmina, February 4th)
Russian FSB uses shoddily faked video to charge 63-year-old woman abducted from occupied Ukraine with ‘terrorism’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 3rd)
Ukrainian Holocaust survivor: Hitler wanted to kill me as a Jew. Putin is trying to kill me because I’m Ukrainian (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 3rd)
How Ukraine lost faith in the Red Cross and UN (Kyiv Independent, January 22nd)
Prison medicine: ways to humanize it (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 7th)
UN monitors report sharp increase in executions of Ukrainian POWs, and point to Russian officials’ effective incitement to kill (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, February 7th)
The Centre for Civil Liberties Participated in the First World Congress on Enforced Disappearances (Centre for Civil Liberties, February 6th)
“I Urge You to Make Every Effort to Release Ukrainian Prisoners of War And Unlawfully Detained Civilians ” Maksym Butkevych at the UN Security Council (Centre for Civil Liberties, February 6th)
Saturday 15 February, 11.0 am — 4.0 pm, Conference: End the Russian invasion and occupation. National Education Union, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD. Register here.
Saturday 15 February, 11.0 am – Palestine solidarity demo. To join the Ukraine-Palestine solidarity contingent, with our banner, “From Ukraine to Palestine – Occupation is a crime”, meet outside Banqueting Hall, corner of Whitehall and Horseguard Avenue, London SW1A
This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. To receive it by email each Monday, email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com. To stop the bulletin, reply with the word “STOP” in the subject field. More information at https://ukraine-solidarity.org/. We are also on twitter, Bluesky, Facebook and Substack, and the bulletin is stored online here.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted a refugee crisis in Europe. News footage showed people piling onto trains and into cars, desperate to escape the threat of bombs and Russian occupation. In Kharkiv, a taxi driver named Sergii told me how in those chaotic early days of war, he had helped evacuate people as Russian missiles turned his bustling neighbourhood of Saltivka into a ghost town.
“I survived by praying to God,” Sergii said, pointing to the icon of the Virgin Mary dangling from his cab’s rearview mirror. “I helped people with no money get out of Saltivka, because people with money had already left.” He narrowly avoided death himself, he added, explaining a rocket had destroyed his apartment as he went out to his cab to retrieve the mobile phone he’d left on the front seat.
Nearly seven million people have now fled Ukraine. The majority have settled in European countries, many of which responded to the war by waiving visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees. Around 250,000 came to the UK, which decided not to fully lift restrictions but to instead introduce two emergency visas: the Ukraine Family Scheme and the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
At their outset, both visas granted Ukrainian nations the right to live, work and study in the UK for up to three years. Now, as the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion rolls around, anybody who arrived in the early days of the war is about to see their right to remain expire.
Yet this week, many Ukrainians faced the prospect that they may never be able to return to their homes. US President Trump announced he had spoken to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to begin peace negotiations that risk handing over occupied regions of Ukraine to Russian control.
Residents of Ukrainian towns and cities previously liberated from Russian control, such as Bucha and Izium, have spoken about the reign of terror and cruelty they endured under occupation, including torture, rape, summary executions and false imprisonment. Should the peace deal go ahead on Putin’s terms, Ukrainian refugees in the UK face an increasingly uncertain future, with those whose homes are in the occupied territories potentially unable to return.
But even before the announcements from the White House and the Kremlin, the UK’s visa schemes have long presented problems for the vulnerable Ukrainians they are supposed to support.
“Before the full-scale invasion, I had a normal life,” Nastya*, aged 24, told openDemocracy “I worked in a supermarket and a fabric factory. Everything was absolutely good. And then on 22 February 2022, the war started.”
At the time, Nastya lived in Uzhorod, a city near the Slovakian border. As missiles battered the country’s major cities and the Russian forces occupied cities such as Izium and Mariupol, committing war crimes in Bucha and Irpin, she decided to flee with her husband.
“It was a stressful time,” she admitted. “I did not know what the future would be and my family were scattered around the world, some in England, some in Germany and some in Ukraine.”
Nastya and her then-husband travelled to Germany, where her mother was living, before coming to the UK on the Ukraine Family Scheme in August 2022. “It was hard to get a job in Germany, especially as I don’t speak German,” she explained. “I didn’t want to live on benefits, I wanted to support myself and live independently. I had heard in the UK there were opportunities for work, so I relocated.”
Nastya and her husband’s visas took only a few days to be approved, and the pair moved in with her sister-in-law in Leeds, where Nastya found a job in a local factory. “The work was hard and physical with lots of heavy lifting but I was earning some money which is good,” she said.
After three months in the UK, Nastya discovered she was pregnant with her first child. It was happy news, but it came as her marriage was falling apart. “It was quite difficult,” she said. ‘My husband was very sad and there were a lot of horrible moments. I decided to separate from him and go to Germany to be with my mother to have the baby.”
Nastya gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, who shares her bright brown eyes and dark hair. While she had wanted to be with her own mother during the birth, as a newly single mum Nastya was keen to return to the UK, where her father and grandmother were living, to get a job, support her daughter, and start a new life.
She had assumed that as she had the right to live and work in the UK, her daughter would be able to join her on the same family visa scheme.
But what Nastya did not realise is that while she was caring for her newborn in Germany, the Conservative government had been quietly restricting Ukrainians’ right to enter the UK. The family visa scheme had been closed and Ukrainians were no longer allowed to sponsor fellow refugees to arrive on the Homes for Ukraine visa.
Now, if Nastya wanted to come to the UK, she would have to leave her daughter behind.
War in Europe
When the Homes for Ukraine scheme was launched in 2022, members of the British public could open their homes to Ukrainian refugees in exchange for an initial monthly payment of £350 from their local council, while Ukrainians who successfully applied for the scheme were granted the right to live, study and work in the UK for three years.
But in February 2024, the then-Tory government brought in a series of changes. It halved the length of time a new Ukrainian applicant would be able to stay in the UK to 18 months, and amended the rules so that only people with British citizenship can sign up to become hosts. At the same time, it cancelled the family visa scheme, meaning Ukrainian nationals living in the UK can no longer sponsor family members to join them.
These changes have effectively made it impossible for Ukrainian nationals in the UK to help loved ones to settle here to escape the war. Now, Ukrainians wanting to come to the UK are reliant on there being an available British citizen who will take them in. But this, too, has suffered changes that have made it a less appealing prospect for many hosts.
In November, the Labour government announced all British citizens signed up to the Homes for Ukraine scheme will be paid £350 a month, regardless of how long they have been hosting. Households who have been hosting for more than a year are currently paid £500 a month.
Even before this announcement, the number of hosts was in decline, according to openDemocracy’s analysis of government data. In the third quarter of 2023, 100,061 households in England received the monthly ‘thank you’ payment, but by the third quarter of Q3 2024, this had fallen to 48,533 households, the lowest number since the full-scale war began.
This decrease in hosts was also apparent in our review of Homes for Ukraine Facebook pages. While at the start of the war, posts from Ukrainians looking for sponsors received multiple comments from potential hosts, these days they often garner no responses or are met with ‘jokes’, with one commenter saying: “I’d rather be in Mykolaiv than London”. Others respond telling those who wish to relocate to the UK from another European country, like Nastya, that the scheme is not for them: “People in the UK would prefer to sponsor people who are in Ukraine and need to be saved from war.”
“Instead of putting more and more administrative barriers in front of people fleeing war, the UK government must show it can match the solidarity and empathy shown by the people of the UK,” said Alena Ivanova, committee member of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, which is organising a march to the Russian embassy in London to mark the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion.
“We know that the vast majority of Ukrainians in the UK are vulnerable women, small children and elderly people who carry significant trauma as a result of Russia’s brutal war. The least we as a country can do is not put them further at risk and increase their anxiety but help them settle and rebuild their lives,” Ivanova added.
Those who arrived in the UK through either the Homes for Ukraine or Ukraine Family Visa scheme in the early days of the war are about to see their right to remain expire. But with the conflict ongoing, they can extend their visas via the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme.
While this extension is undoubtedly needed, the process for obtaining it is fraught – and may put vulnerable people at risk of falling out of the system.
People needing an extension can apply only when they have 28 days or less left on their right to remain, which may impact their ability to work or be housed, with landlords and employers nervous about accepting Ukrainians who may not have the legal right to be in the country. Those who miss the extension window are at risk of becoming undocumented and therefore will be considered to be in the UK illegally. Although the war means it is unlikely these people will be deported, they would be unable to work or access housing, and are at risk of being removed in the future.
And applications for extensions can only be made from within the UK – a problem for women like Nastya in Germany, or for anyone visiting family in Ukraine.
Polling by the Office for National Statistics found that while the majority of Ukrainians are aware of the visa changes and the need to apply for an extension, a small minority of mainly vulnerable refugees, such as the elderly or young, are not.
Uncertainty is also built into the extension scheme. People will be able to extend their right to stay in the UK by only 18 months, half the three years they were initially granted. If they stay for the full term, a Ukrainian refugee’s total residency in the UK will have been four and a half years – six months short of the five years that a person must have continuously lived here to be eligible for the right to settle permanently.
There is also uncertainty for those British nationals hosting Ukrainians. If their guest is granted an extension, their host will need to reapply for thank you payments.
openDemocracy asked the UK government how it plans to deal with the temporary nature of the visas should the conflict continue for another 18 months. We also asked what plans they have in place should a peace deal cede Ukrainian territory to Russia, with those fleeing the occupied regions unable to return home. They did not respond.
‘I feel loneliness’
Nastya had always planned to return from Germany to the UK with her daughter. Here, she could work and have her own home where she, her daughter and her new partner, who is also Ukrainian, could live as a family.
Now, the changes to the visa schemes have cut her and her daughter off, leaving her living in limbo. She and her daughter face a choice: living in Germany where she struggles to find work and faces eviction from her refugee accommodation in the coming year, or returning to Ukraine which endures daily bombardment by Russian bombs and drones.
“In Germany, I face going into a refugee camp, which is no place to raise a child,” Nastya warned. “My mother lives in a separate city and so we cannot see each other regularly.”
Worse, the heartbreak of being separated from her father and grandmother has been devastating.
“They have never had the chance to meet their granddaughter and great-granddaughter,” she said, the pain of separation clear in her voice. “I have not been in touch with them face to face, and they would really like to meet. I want to see my father and grandmother and it is impossible.”
The changes to the visa schemes have left women like Nastya experiencing a double displacement. First, the full-scale invasion forced them from their homes in Ukraine. Now, changing government policy has separated them from family members in the UK.
“I have cried a lot,” said Nastya. “I feel loneliness, it is so hard that I can’t put it into words. I am crying a lot but I don’t want to blame anyone. If I would receive a visa for my daughter it would be really nice and I would be able to meet my family.”
Nastya has some hope. Last month, the Labour government partially reversed the changes made by the previous administration, allowing Ukrainians to bring their children to join them in the UK, a change described as a “welcome step in the right direction,” by Mubeen Bhutta, British Red Cross director of policy, research and advocacy. The charity has supported Nastya and her family.
“Our teams have supported people who had been unable to reunite with young children,” she said. “We’ve seen their pain and suffering and know this will mean a lot to families who have been torn apart. However, even with these changes many family members will remain separated.
“It is still very difficult for displaced Ukrainians to help elderly parents or partners find safety in the UK. It is vital that the government addresses these obstacles and helps more Ukrainians reunite with their loved ones.”
Nastya, who has a legal right to be in the UK, can now apply for an extension and for her daughter to join her. Her partner, however, must find a British national to sponsor him.
“It is really hard to be a refugee,” she said. “It is impossible to see a future for Ukraine. It would be really nice to go to the UK to work, to rent a flat, to pay taxes. This is what I need, simple things to be satisfied. I want my daughter to be happy, to have a good education.”
California State Education Resources California Department of Education: Chief Deputy Superintendent: David Schapira Reminder of Obligation to Protect Immigrant Families’ Rights to Access Public Education
The letter from the California Department of Education (CDE) reminds schools of their obligation to protect the rights of immigrant families to access free public education, regardless of immigration status. It highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe ruling and California laws ensuring non-discrimination and safe school environments. The letter includes resources for training staff, legal guidance, and mental health support.
CA Office of the Attorney General: Promoting a Safe and Secure Learning Environment for All: Guidance and Model Policies to Assist California’s K-12 Schools in Responding to Immigration Issues
With the inauguration of President Trump at hand, Monterey County officials and community stakeholders showed a united front in their support of all immigrants who live, work and attend school in the region at a press conference.
On Jan. 15, Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue, Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto and Monterey County Supervisors Luis Alejo, Kate Daniels and Chris Lopez joined leaders in education, agriculture, hospitality, health and social services to announce the passage of a resolution on Tuesday affirming the county’s commitment to protecting immigrants’ rights and launch a public “Know Your Rights” campaign.
The resolution reestablished the county as a “Welcoming County” for immigrants and refugees, reaffirming key provisions of various state laws including the California Values Act (Senate Bill 54) and is the product of an Ad Hoc Committee formed by the board of supervisors in December.
Monterey County’s resolution came the same day the Salinas City Council, at their first meeting of 2025, issued a statement reminding residents the city has been a “Welcoming City” since June 2017.
The city “is steadfast in our dedication to serving the entire community, ensuring public safety and fostering trust regardless of immigration status, citizenship status or nationality, said Mayor Dennis Donohue at the Tuesday council meeting.
The majority of immigrants in California are documented residents, according to California’s Public Policy Institute, in 2022, 83% of immigrants were either citizens or had some other legal residency status.
While California has 1.8 million immigrants that were undocumented in 2022, according to Pew Research, it is down from 2.8 million in 2007.
Many undocumented individuals live in “mixed-status” households, which includes people with legal status.
According to the California Immigration Data Portal, in 2021, more than 3.3 million people in California and one in five children lived in such “mixed-status” households.
After recent immigration enforcement in Kern County spurred online rumors of similar activity occurring locally that turned out to be false, Sheriff Nieto told the crowd outside the Monterey County Government Center on Wednesday, that her office had been fielding phone calls from concerned residents.
“My family’s afraid to go to the store, my family’s afraid to send their children to school, my family’s afraid to go outside of the house,” said Nieto, describing some of the calls to law enforcement. “I want to assure you that here in Monterey County, the sheriff’s office and your chiefs of police know what the rules are and understand with the Trust Act is, and we’re going to follow those rules.”
Enacted in 2014, the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools (TRUST) Act (AB 4) defines the circumstances in which local law enforcement agencies may comply with immigration detainer requests.
Monterey County Office of Education Superintendent Deneen Guss said she wanted to reassure parents that schools are safe spaces for students.
“Our administrators, our educators, and our school staff are dedicated to creating welcoming environments where students and their families feel seen, heard and safe,” Guss said. “I want to assure parents that under current federal laws, schools are considered protected areas and are generally prohibited from voluntarily granting access to campus, by immigration officers, in the absence of a judicial warrant or a court order.”
“I urge you to please keep sending your children to school every day and to also create an emergency plan, including designating someone who can care for your child if needed,” she added.
During the pandemic, workers in agriculture and the service industry were lauded as “essential workers” as many continued to work onsite while workers in other industries got to work remotely and shelter-in-place.
Executive Director for the Monterey County Farm Bureau Norm Groot said local workers in the county’s $4.3 billion agriculture industry should still be considered essential.
“Our fresh food supply and local economy are fully dependent on this workforce and we consider this a national security priority in a time of agricultural labor shortages — farming depends on a stable and reliable workforce not one under threat,” Groot said. “[The county agriculture industry] depends on 55,000 farm workers to harvest our crops each year — primarily immigrants.”
“We appreciate the farmworkers’ vital contributions to the national food supply as essential workers,” he said.
The second largest industry in the county, hospitality, employs 25,000 people.
Rick Aldinger from the Monterey County Hospitality Association said the local immigrant workforce are “hardworking individuals” and “part of the fabric of our local communities” and thanked Supervisors Alejo and Lopez for spearheading the county’s Ad-Hoc Committee.
“Huge progress has been made in a very brief period of time,” Aldinger said. “Avenues of communication have been established among key players and industry leaders and a comprehensive portfolio of resources has been put together that will help our workforce navigate, whatever might lie ahead.”
Individual rights under state and federal law is also something employers with an immigrant workforce must also understand.
“We are trying to not only educate our immigrant workforce but also trying to educate the employers and what their rights are,” Groot said. “It’s a much larger circle than just saying we need to inform immigrants what their rights are.”
“We are trying to work through that and understand how much information we have to push out at this point — it really depends on what happens after next Monday,” Groot said, referring to President Trump’s inauguration, “and how many Executive Orders we’re going to start seeing.”
Western free society is seriously sick too. The symptoms pop up here and there, but one of the most disgusting is the massive support for the alleged “people of Palestine”—that is, Hamas—in this whole monstrous story. I really don’t understand HOW it has been possible, after the atrocities of October 7, after the taking of hostages, including children, to pretend that this was a minor trifle? That the ruthless Jews suddenly out of the blue started tormenting the unfortunate residents of the Gaza Strip?
After all, bolstered by this wave of international support, Hamas thinks it has won. This will lead to fresh terrorist attacks, of course.
The map above shows what Palestine’s West Bank would look like if all non-Palestinian land suddenly turned into water.
All that would remain would be an archipelago of small islands with the sea of Israel to the west and the Jordanian ocean to the east.
The map is designed to show just how broken up Palestinian land in the West Bank really is. And while originally published in French, it is quite clear in the main point it’s trying to make.
Here are some key points about the map:
Regions of Palestinian Authority:
The map shows areas of partial and total Palestinian autonomy, marked in different shades of green. The darker green areas represent total autonomy, while the lighter green areas represent partial autonomy.
Israeli Settlements:
Areas in blue indicate Israeli settlements.
Urban Zones:
Orange areas represent urban zones.
Protected and Historical Sites:
Natural reserves and protected coasts are marked, along with historical sites.
Geographical Representation:
The map depicts the West Bank as a series of islands, which illustrates the fragmented nature of Palestinian territories due to the division created by Israeli settlements, roads, and checkpoints.
Symbols:
Various symbols denote airports, historical sites, protected coasts, beaches, and camping areas. There are also symbols indicating maritime connections, which, in the context of the map, seem to suggest metaphorical “water” crossings between different areas of Palestinian control.
Geographic Features:
Names of regions and cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho are mentioned, providing a sense of the location and distribution of these areas.
The map’s creation by Julien Bousac aims to highlight the challenges faced by Palestinians due to the fragmentation of their territories. The fictional archipelago metaphorically represents how the West Bank is divided and isolated, illustrating the complex political and social landscape of the region.
Red America and Blue America have become two different and mutually antagonistic countries sharing the same geographic space. They barely talk to each other, don’t understand one another — and while Blue America happens to be aware that both itself and Red America exist in a larger, infinitely complex world that needs both of them to be one whole for its survival, just as both of them need that larger world for theirs, Red America is not interested in and indeed is hostile to anything and anyone that is not itself and, while generally tending to be poor and perennially gripped by bitterness and resentment, derives its existential satisfaction almost exclusively from making Blue America feel bad — “owning the libs,” as Red America calls it.
A really good series. I don’t know to what degree it straight up deserves а rating of eight, but it has interesting and fairly unique ideas, and the lead actress is pretty and acts well. We’ll see what the next episodes are like, but on the basis of the first one we can say [that the show] has fine potential. If it develops in a good direction, it could turn out to be decent.
Source: Ororo.TV. Translated by the Russian Reader
Kirill Medvedev,* a poet, publisher, and member of the band Arkady Kots, left Russia in 2023 and returned in late 2024. At Republic Weekly’s request, he explains his winding road, what Moscow looks like when one hasn’t seen it from the inside for a long time, and what remainers have to say about leavers.
After a year and a half of living in other countries for personal (but, of course, political) reasons, I have been living in Moscow for several months now. Despite certain risks, I really don’t want to leave, and I am terrified of everything having to do with living in exile. I’m willing to speak in allegories or even to keep silent altogether just to be able to live in my hometown. Although what could be more important than waking up in the morning and smacking the Putin regime in the face without pulling your punches?
Everything in Moscow is still familiar and homely. I am indifferent to Sobyanin’s renovations. Things have improved in some places, while in other places it’s the reverse. Half-abandoned spots have suddenly emerged even in the most expensive neighborhoods, as if the money had suddenly been hoovered out of them. I’m certain that’s literally what happened.
I don’t see any particular feasting amid a plague, but I guess I’m just not hitting the right spots. Moscow has become more desolate and wild on the whole. When the capital is finally moved to Siberia, the Moscow I know and love will look even better. But for now, it is still what it is: a crazy quilt fashioned from Eurasian chaos, absorbing a million shades of the glitz and poverty of the entire country and its neighbors, and tempting us with new revolutions somewhere in its squares and back alleys.
All of Russia can be found in Moscow, and yet, as everyone knows, Moscow is not Russia. Thanks to this fun fact, it is easier for Muscovites than for anyone else to love the entire country, albeit an imaginary and unfathomable country, shaped from different scraps. “I stand as before an eternal riddle, / Before a great and fabulous land,” sang one remarkable Muscovite. I repeat another poet’s line about another city, thinking that love for one’s capital city and one’s country is an enormous, complicated privilege: “May it not be my lot / To die far away from you.”
Online public communication habits have actually changed a lot because of the risks involved. It no longer feels like your event didn’t happen if it wasn’t written up online and if you didn’t post a photo of yourself with a crowd of happy spectators.
There are [now] more personal channels of communication within communities and more word of mouth. Reactions are more reserved in public and more emotional among friends. Pardon my sentimentality, but there is little to compare with physical hugs with friends and family in a city charged with your own and other people’s memories.
Of course, there are a lot of new problems, and I’d rather deal with some variety of internet addiction than the nightmare in which everyone has found themselves. And yet there is the perception that the war has ushered in the degradation of all ways of living in Russia. This is not true. Humans are ultra-creative and crafty creatures. Violent shocks do not neutralize life but propel it into new forms. A caveat: no new ways of living and creating can justify the mass murder of people who will never wake up to life again. But cultural, activist, educational, and other communities who persist and change, albeit semi-clandestinely, albeit at the cost of compromise or risk, increase our chances of transitioning to a different way of living in this country in the future. The more allies we have here at home now, the more likely they are to be in the right place at the right time—that is, if the first flights our friends who have been shoved out of the country plan to take are delayed a bit.
Irony or irritation towards the people who have left [Russia] for one reason or another is evident among almost all those who have stayed, except for those who are definitely planning to leave. One of the frequent complaints is “They left to live in safety, and they did the right thing—they just shouldn’t pass it off as a political act.”
That is true, though with many caveats. Bravo, of course, to the activists who have been helping people who have to leave to get out of the country and to adapt to life abroad. Bravo to the journalists who have moved to relatively safe places and continue to fulfill their professional obligation to their fellow citizens. Regular albeit serious news, reported with respect for themselves and the audience, without unnecessary harshness (“so that you can send it to your grandmother”) is needed desperately: almost everyone talks about it. But pessimism and aggression about life inside the country on the part of fellow citizens who have left the country is completely out of place. It is clearly old-fashioned exile self-therapy and should be practiced in private.
While the demand for alternative information is great (many people in the USSR who were not necessarily anti-Soviet also listened to Voice of America), one can see skepticism or simply a lack of interest in émigré politics. Why is this the case? There seem to be many examples in history when political émigrés came back home, were involved in great transformations, or even spearheaded them. Escaping from prison in Russia, making one’s way abroad, drinking to a successful adventure with comrades in Geneva, discussing future strategies in a relaxed atmosphere, and soon returning home to work underground was a typical trajectory for Russia’s radical democrats in the early twentieth century.
Things have changed since then, although today many also travel back and forth. You can talk at length to those who have stayed in Russia about the hardships of emigration, and they will agree and sympathize with you, especially if you were actually in danger here at home.
For the most part, though, people still see someone else’s moving abroad as their means of upgrading their private existence.
By renouncing your past life, it is as if you automatically renounce your past community. The propaganda, of course, does its best to inflate the resentment, but it’s not just propaganda at work. Emigration is indeed an experience of constant self-denial. Especially today, when Russian emigrants are so evidently prodded (gently and not so gently) to cancel themselves in terms of of their citizenship, background, language, identity, or even flag. Moreover, the reanimated ethical-religious discourse of the Cold War, with its confrontation between good and evil on a global scale, has played a considerable role in this.
The field where dialogue should have taken place between leavers and remainers, as well as between moderate oppositionists and hesitant loyalists, has been overrun by moralizers in proverbial white coats and rabid patriots. They are the dividers and conquerors.
The leavers more often argue in terms of negative freedom—freedom from censorship, political crackdowns, and military mobilization, from having to indirectly finance the war or live among its supporters. The remainers stay because they do not see how they can realize themselves abroad, at least not without the sort of superhuman effort and self-denial that many of them find more frightening than living under the threat of arrest or self-censorship. They often speak of duty—to elderly relatives, students, patients, voters, political prisoners, the graves of relatives, the homeland, etc. And they often hear in response that it is immoral to be involved in the normalized life in today’s Russia. The ethical conflict is evident.
I wander the Pokrovkas and the Ordynkas, thinking about where I can get money to pay the bills and pay off my debts. There are posters calling for men to sign up for the army. Somehow I don’t feel more upstanding than the guys who go off to kill for money. I would definitely not go to do that, but this certainty does not raise my moral self-esteem. I think of an old comrade who perished in the “special military operation.” His debts, low social status, and leftist anti-western ressentiment had blossomed into imperialist obfuscation.
I sit in a cafe, thinking about my plans. The people around me talk about different things, while people in a neighboring country are bombed in our name.
I’m good at displacing unpleasant things. We all are good at it.
Being here, dissolving into this life, it is difficult to feel like a member of an ethics committee. It’s easier to realize that all people are basically the same, that there are no insuperable differences between them. All our actions (whether ordinary, shameful, or magnificent), all the passivity of the masses, all the revolts of nations, are manifestations of the same human principle in different historical circumstances. The way humanness manifests itself in our present circumstances, the way my own humanness manifests itself in them, is the most interesting thing to observe. Okay, we’ve established that.
No, of course, there is a huge difference between opposition to evil, passive non-participation, and complicity in it. Putin’s propagandists have been blurring the distinction between the first, second and third to depoliticize and morally degrade society. We know this, and you can’t fool us. In both the secular and Christian systems, a person always has a choice and a responsibility for it. We should not see the individual as a unwilling victim of want and propaganda. But something else is also true: even if you believe that you have made your own super-correct moral choice once and for all, endlessly judging your neighbor, or believing they are made of some qualitatively different stuff than you, or finding them complicit in collective guilt without trial is also a quite devilish temptation, akin to the temptations proffered today in our country by various spiritual and political leaders.
Political evil is countered not by personal virtue, and even less by moralistic posturing. It is countered by political or civic ethics, but our country has a huge problem with that.
All the debates between the leavers and the remainers, all the debates over the slogans “peace now” vs. “war until the dictatorship’s defeat,” all the debates about whether Navalny should have returned to Russia, revolve around the missing answer to the ethical (aka political) question: for what are we willing to risk our private lives, for what collective ideals?
I certainly don’t have a clear answer. Russia is long past the heroic times of liberalism and socialism, when people believed that civic heroism was not weak-mindedness or recklessness, but a deliberate, mature step toward a better future. Popular willingness to take to the streets against war and dictatorship is impossible without the conviction that we are on the right side of history, that we are in a movement that both overlaps with and transcends our private interests.
The Bolsheviks believed in communism’s inevitable advent on a global scale, and were able to convince many people this would happen, which was why they won. In 1991, Russians believed that by defending the [Russian] White House and confronting the coup plotters’ tanks, they were leading Russia onto the road of progress which all democratic nations were already rolling down. Whether we like it or not, Russia is not ready to follow any well-trodden path. There is no single road anymore: the road is just going to have to be paved anew. (I’m reckoning on this.)
Today we see a faint glimmer of hope in republicanism, with its idea that community spirit is not a consolation prize for people who lack professional fulfillment and personal happiness. It is not reducible to a professional or personal virtue and is not a profession itself.
Anyone willing to stand with others to oppose tyranny and then work every day to prevent it from happening again is capable of demonstrating civic valor. And the brighter, bolder and more constructively a person commits to this work, the more they make use of their professional, creative and other kinds of potential, the greater their authority in the community will be and the more likely they will remain in the community’s memory. This sounds good as a motivation, but if the republican ethic is realizable, then it is realizable in the small and medium-size spaces of campaigns around residential buildings, courtyards, neighborhoods, and (at most) cities, where it is possible to find analogues of the ancient Greek square for people to hold meetings.
A national community is imaginary, no matter how you look at it, and it is based on a rather sketchy common historical plight and collective memory. If we do not want it to be the memory of how “everyone was afraid of us,” it should be the memory of how we survived together and resisted—secretly and explicitly, passively and actively—the extermination of others and self-extermination, of how we built ties, engaged in “culture,” taught children, supported political prisoners, and helped the bombing victims and the homeless.
This is the ground of community, a ground not nourished by moral superiority, by denying oneself and one’s roots, or by essentializing differences. It is nourished by responsibility for the people who stand or have stood next to you in the same squares and the same queues, for the people who walk the same streets, who went to the same schools, who share the same hopes for the future.
If we indeed stand on this ground, then it makes sense for us to challenge and set our hearts on something together.
* Medvedev has been placed on the Russian Justice Ministry’s registry of “foreign agents.”
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on Zelensky’s voyage to Washington, D.C. (March 1, 2025)
Leader of the neo-Nazi regime Zelensky’s visit to Washington D.C. on February 28 is an epic political and diplomatic failure of the Kiev regime.
The Kiev regime refused to continue talks on a political and diplomatic settlement in the spring of 2022, using lies and fake claims to justify continued hostilities and keep receiving Western military and financial aid.
has destroyed the opposition,
The sooner Kiev and the European capitals come to realise this, the closer to a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis we will be.
