Election Day: 18 March 2018

The “get out the vote” mobile just made its second pass down our street today.

The speakers mounted on its roof blared out at deafening volume the recording of a song that mentioned something about a “strong team” and resembled a jingle for potato chips or tampons more than anything.

Russia’s leaders take the Russian people for idiots.

Minutes later, the “get out the vote” mobile made its third pass down our street today, driving in the opposite direction.

This time, the speakers on the car’s roof were not terrorizing the neighboring with the ear-splitting jingle about the “strong team.” Instead, a middle-aged man with the velvety-toned voice of a Soviet news presenter explained — again, at extremely high volume — that today was a “celebration” in which Russians were “making a choice” that would “determine the country’s future.”

The “get out the vote” mobile just made its ninth pass down our street in the last four hours. It drove slowly. The speakers on its roof were cranked up to eleven, playing a particularly unpleasant song.

I gather this is now the punishment phase for everyone on our street who hasn’t voted in the “celebration” to “re-elect” Russia’s dictator for life today.

It goes without saying that people like that deserve the worst. Even many of their own alleged friends and political allies have been emotionally abusing them online for the last several days, so strong is the Putin personality cult, especially among the Russian liberal and leftist intelligentsia.

Not that any of them would admit it. They are Putin’s real base, because they have the means to do something about his tyranny, but most have chosen to engage in more personally pleasant pursuits, some of which they have managed to pass off as “opposition” or “grassroots” politics. ||| TRR, 18 March 2018

Out Through the In Door, or, The Victim Is Always the Guilty Party

Yevgeny Kurakin. Courtesy of Facebook and Daily Storm

Journalist Yevgeny Kurakin Detained after Release from Special Detention Facility
Mediazona
September 30, 2018

Journalist Yevgeny Kurakin has been detained in the Moscow Region city of Elektrostal. Kurakin was scheduled to be released from a special detention facility after ten days in jail for an administrative violation, Vera Makarova, who had planned to meet Kurakin when he left the facility, told OVD Info.

According to Makarova, the journalist was scheduled to be released at 5:30 p.m. At 5:30 p.m., five people in plain clothes entered the facility, soon emerging with Kurakin in their custody. They put him in an unmarked car and drove away.

Kurakin managed to tell Makarov that three of the people in plain clothes were police officers, while the other two were official witnesss. The people detaining Kurakin told him they had an order to take him into custody without giving him any of the details. Makarova thought Kurakin may have been taken to the police station in Balishikha.

On September 21, a court in Reutov sentenced Kurakin to ten days in jail after finding him guilty of failure to pay a fine (Administrative Offenses Code 20.25 Part 1), which he had been ordered to pay in June after he was found guilty of violating Administrative Offense Code 6.1.1 (battery).* In addition to the fine, he was then also sentenced to fifteen days in jail. According to Kurakin, he paid the fine immediately.

*“Kurakin was detained on his way to a public meeting with Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov. Kurakin said the cause of his arrest was an incident that had taken place at the Territorial Electoral Commission during the March 2018 presidential election. According to Kurakin, who was involved in the commission, he discovered “systematic blockage of telephone and internet connection at polling stations in the city in order to hinder election observers.” When Kurakin attempted to switch off a blocking device, a member of the electoral commission at Polling Station No. 2639 assaulted him. The man subsequently filed charges against Kurakin with the police.” Source: Mediazona

Translated by the Russian Reader

Network: Parents versus the FSB

Network: Parents of Anarchists versus the FSB
Alexei Polikhovich and Ksenia Sonnaya
OVD Info
July 30, 2018

Members of the Parents Network. Photo courtesy of OVD Info

Eleven antifascists from Penza and Petersburg have been charged in the case against the alleged “terrorist community” known as the Network. Many people have got used to news of the violence, threats, and electrical shock torture used against the suspects in the case, but the accused themselves and their loved ones will probably never grow inured to such things. The parents of the accused came together in a committee known as the Parents Network. They have been trying to do something to help their loved ons.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims the Network is an international organization. Aside from Penza and Petersburg, secret cells were, allegedly, established in Moscow and Belarus. Yet no one has been arrested either in Russia’s capital or abroad. Meanwhile, the Parents Network is definitely an international organization. Aside from Penza, Petersburg, Moscow, and Novosibirsk, the committee has members in Petropavlovsk, the city in Kazakhstan where Viktor Filinkov’s mother lives.

Members of the Parents Network have appeared at two press conferences, in April and May of this year. They have established a chatroom on Telegram where they discuss new developments in the case, exchange opinions, share impressions of hearings and interrogations, and give each other support. In addition, the parents try and force reactions from Russian government oversight and human rights bodies. They write letters to Russia’s human rights ombudsman and the Presidential Human Rights Council, and file complaints with the Investigative Committee and the Russian Bar Association.

OVD Info spoke with members of the Parents Network.

Tatyana Chernova, Andrei Chernov’s mother, shop clerk
All this kicked off in March at the next-to-last custody extension hearing in Penza.

I went to see Ilya Shakursky. I knew reporters and human rights advocates would be there. I just approached the people who had come to the hearing and asked for help. One of those people was Lev Ponomaryov, leader of the movement For Human Rights. He responded and proposed meeting in Moscow.

I didn’t know any human rights activists. I didn’t know where to go or to whom to turn, since I’d never dealt with this. When I’d discuss it with my daughter, she would scold me, telling me we had to wait or we might make things worse.

My husband and I went to see Lev Ponomaryov. We said we didn’t know what to do. We had a lawyer. Our lawyer did his job, while we, the parents, didn’t know how to help. We were told to take a pen and sign up, that the first thing to do was unite with all the other parents. I found their telephones numbers and gradually called all of them.

Andrei Chernov’s family

I couldn’t get hold of Lena Shakurskaya. I sent her an SMS, saying I’m so-and-so’s mom, I want to talk, if you want to talk, write. She called me right back. Everyone was probably waiting for it. We shared a misfortune, and it brought us together. Our first meeting was at Lev Ponomaryov’s office. Lena came to Moscow for the meeting. It was only there she heard the whole truth. Mikhail Grigoryan, Ilya’s former lawyer, had been telling her a different story. The Pchelintsevs met her. They told her what was going on. Lena was made sick by what she found out.

We try to have each other’s backs. The blows are such that it’s hard to take. Yes, I have friends. But I can call Sveta Pchelintseva or Lena Bogatova, say, knowing they’ll know where I’m coming from, because this is part of our personal lives.

Yelena Bogatova, Ilya Shakursky’s mother, shop clerk
We had a lawyer, Mikhail Grigoryan. He warned me against communicating with the relatives of the other lads. He said each of us had to defend their own son. Nothing good would come of fraternizing. I listened to him.

In March, I saw Andrei Chernov’s mom. Again, at Grigoryan’s insistence, I didn’t go up to her or chat with her. Later, I had doubts. I wanted to talk to someone. God was probably reading our minds: it was then Tatyana Chernova sent me an SMS. We got in touch on the phone. I went to Moscow without telling the lawyer. We met with human rights activists. We discussed how to talk about the kids.

It’s really rough when you’re on your own in these circumstances, but now we are together. You realized you’re not alone and our boys are not alone. What we do is mainly for them. We put on these t-shirts when we go to hearings so they can see we are fighting. We have gone to all the hearings together so they see we’re all together.

At first, I was a “cooperative” mom. I was friendly with the investigator. We would talk. He said unflattering things about the other parents. Grigoryan would ask me to meet with Ilya to “talk sense” into him. The investigator would talk to me, telling me that if I was a good mom, I would get the message through his head, that is, if we had a good relationship, as I had told him. Then I would get to see Ilya for ten minutes.

Yelena Bogatova and Ilya Shakursky

In February, when Ilya signed a statement saying he had not been tortured, his uncle and I persuaded him to sign the paper. We didn’t understand a thing, of course. Grigoryan said Ilya had to sign the paper. He said he was working for us and Ilya shouldn’t be obstinate, but should sign everything he asked him to sign.

Ilya stared at me.

“Mom, what are you doing?” he said. “I’m not guilty of anything.”

“Sign it or things will get worse for you, and I’ll have it worse. I won’t see you again,” I said to him.

I was selfish, drowning in my own grief. I pushed my son into doing it because I felt sorry for myself. The FSB used me. Yes, you can see him, but make him to sign this. Hold his hand.

It’s psychologically easier for me now. I feel strong inside. I have the confidence to keep going and try and rescue the boys from the paws of the FSB. I don’t have any friends per se anymore. At first, they would call and ask about things, but then they would do it less and less often. I don’t know, maybe they’re afraid of the FSB. They’re afraid of calling me once too much because they know my phone is bugged.

On the other hand, I have a sense of how many friends Ilya has. I communicate with the Parents Committee and Ilya’s friends, who are not afraid of anything. We talk on the phone. They visit Ilya’s grandma and help. They water the garden and go to the store, just like Timur and his friends.

Natalya, Viktor Filinkov’s mom, businesswoman
It was like a bolt out of the blue. Viktor’s wife, Alexandra, wrote to me. I was ready to go see him that very minute, but I was told it would be better for me not to show up in Russia for the time being. I live in Petropavlovsk in northern Kazakhstan, which is not far from Omsk. It’s sixty kilometers to the Russian border.

Then I could not wait any longer. I said I was going to Petersburg, come what may. Everyone was surprised I was allowed to see him. I was the first parent allowed to see their child. But it was so little time. It was so hard to talk to him through the glass.

“Mom, I’ve been tortured,” he said.

I could see he had a scar. He told me to stay strong and be reasonable about what was happening.

Viktor Filinkov

I’d never been interested in politics. Now, though, I’m interested. I’m interested in Russian politics and Kazakhstani politics, and I read all the news straight through. I read about what incidents happened where, who was tortured where, who has been framed, who has been protected. I read everything about what’s happened to antifascists and anarchists everywhere.

I think about why I don’t live in Russia, in Petersburg. I cannot move right now. It’s complicated to do the paperwork, register as an immigrant, and get a temporary resident permit. The thing that causes me the most pain is the thought they could ban me from entering the country.

Nikolai Boyarshinov, Yuli Boyarshinov’s father, artist
It’s a terrible state, which everyone has been through, when you suddenly find out your son has been arrested, and the charges are so absurd. You have no idea at all what to do. It’s a wall against which you beat your head. You quite quickly realize you’re completely powerless.

I joined the Parents Network when it had quite a few members. I was completely crushed then. At first, I imagined it existed for its own sake, to keep from going insane. But then I noticed it got results. By then I had completely recovered from my initial state, so I did things, thought about things, and discussed things. Being involved in the Parents Network was my salvation.

We have a chat page on Telegram. In contrast to the Network, which the FSB concocted, we don’t hide the fact we have a Network. If you think our children organized a criminal Network, then our Network is probably criminal, too.

Our actions get few results, perhaps, but it is this way, bit by bit, that you build up the desire to do something to improve the conditions in which the boys are incarcerated. Publicity was their salvation, after all. It’s not a matter of getting them released yet. We are still thinking about how to keep them alive.

That was how it happened with my son. I saw him at the first custody extension hearing, a month after his arrest. I saw what he looked liked when he arrived at the courthouse. He looked drab and battered. He had fresh bruises on his head. You could see that it couldn’t go on for long like that. His friends, thirty people or so, came to the next hearing. When he saw everyone, he was happy. A new phase began after that. It was clear that at least they wouldn’t kill him.

Yuli Boyarshinov in childhood

It was a turning point for me. When everything went public, it saved my son’s life. Yet now I’m afraid the publicity will die down and the boys will again be isolated, and the nightmare will recommence. That’s why I never turn down an interview.

I go out picketing on Fridays. I had doubts when the World Cup was underway. The first day I had the sense I was preventing people from enjoying themselves, but I decided to keep going out. Something unexpected happens each time. A young man came up to me and said he knew nothing about the Network. He walked away, apparently looked in the internet, and came back. I told him about the other boys.

“I don’t share those views,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter now whether you’re leftist or rightist,” I replied. “What matters is that you have views, and that is sufficient grounds to arrest you and charge you with a crime.”

The Parents Network is now like a family. We’ve agreed that when this travesty of justice is over, we will definitely have a reunion with everyone. Everyone has become family. Viktor’s mom lives in Kazakhstan, and his wife had to escape, so when I take care packages to Yuli, I take packages for Viktor, too. I really want to meet all the boys. I’m worried sick about all of them. My wife sometimes reads an article about Dima Pchelintsev or Viktor, and she cries. We feel like they’re our children.

Yelena Strigina, Arman Sagynbayev’s mother, chief accountant
The first to get together were the people in Penza, the Pchelintsevs and the Chernovs. I joined along the way. The defense lawyers had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, so we had to go public with all our problems.

I live in Novosibirsk. We all stay in touch through a certain banned messenging site. When we were at the hearings in Penza, we made t-shirts emblazoned with the logo “Free [son’s surname].” It might look like a game to outsiders, but we have to stay afloat. It’s important to do something. And to publicize everything that happens.

Arman Sagynbayev and his niece. Screenshot from the website of the Best of Russia competition (left); photo of a billboard in Moscow (right)

Arman has a serious chronic illness. There was no point in torturing him. His first testimony was enough to send him down for ten years. He testified against himself more than he did against the others. He was extradited from Petersburg to Penza. Along the way, the men who were transporting him opened the doors when they were in the woods and dragged Arman out. They promised to bury him alive. That was at night. In the morning, he was taken to the investigator for questioning. When people are under that kind of pressure, they would say anything. I would say I’d attempted to invade Kazan and blow up chapels.

Arman Sagynbayev in childhood

I kept the story secret from friends and relatives. But after the film about the case on NTV, everyone called and started looking funny at me. The news even made it to the school that Arman’s little brother attends. Imagine: your brother is a terrorist. It was a good thing honest articles had been published at that point. I would send people links to them. Thanks to those articles, people read a different take on events, and we have been protected from a negative reaction from society.

Svetlana Pchelintsev, Dmitry Pchelintsev’s mother, cardiologist
The Parents Network has empowered us a hundredfold. By joining together, we are no longer each fighting for our own son, we are fighting for all the boys. We love kids we don’t know at all, kids who are complete strangers, as if they were our own kids. Our hearts ache for each of them. I think it’s wonderful. A whole team of parents fighting for all the boys. What can stop parents? Nothing can stop them.

What has happened is terrible. Whether we like or not, we have to go on living while also helping the children. So, when one mom has a moment of weakness, she can telephone another mom, who is feeling the opposite emotions. It’s vital when a person hears that support.

Dmitry Pchelintsev in childhood

Dmitry Pchelintsev, Dmitry Pchelintsev’s father, engineer
We are a committee of parents. What we do is support each other. We live in Moscow, but our son is jailed in Penza. The parents who live in Penza visit our son. Our kids, as it turns out, belong to all of us. We were in Penza and we gave all the children all their care packages at the same time. If we talk with the warden of the remand prison, we speak on behalf of all the kids.

This has helped us and helped our children. We get emotional support. It’s one thing when you sit alone in a closed room and don’t know what’s happening to your child. It’s another thing when all the parents meet and discuss everything. Tiny facts come together into a big picture, and you more or less understand what’s happening.

In my view, publicity is quite effective. This has been borne out by the actions of the case investigator, Tokarev. If it makes Tokarev uncomfortable, if it makes Tokarev angry, it’s a good thing. As he said, “You raised this ruckus in vain. They would have been in prison long ago.” So, what’s bad for him is good for me. I visited the offices of the Investigative Committee in Penza. They couldn’t believe it was possible the FSB would torture people in a remand prison.

Lena, Ilya Shakursky’s mom, said Tokarev always referred to us and the Chernovs as “uncooperative” parents. He complained that, if it weren’t for us, our kids would have been sentenced to two years each in prison and that would have been it. How can a person say such things? You put a man in jail for nothing, and then you sit and clap.

The FSB are Putin’s hellhounds. Putin loosened their leash a little, and they grabbed everyone they could before the presidential election and the World Cup. Now it’s all coming to an end, and he’ll again say, “Heel!” Let’s see where it leads. Perhaps the plug will be pulled, unfortunately.

All photos courtesy of the parents and relatives of the accused and OVD Info. Translated by the Russian Reader.

***************

What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”
Spread the word about the Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.
Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find printable posters and flyers you can download. You can also read more about the case there.
If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandise, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You can find the addresses of the prisoners here.
Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.
Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.
If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.
If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.
It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.
Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are examined by actual judges, the Russian government will again be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

***************

If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other recent cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and republish the recent articles the Russian Reader has posted on these subjects.

Diabetics in Saratov Deemed Threat to Russian National Security

insulinc Patriotic Russian diabetics treat their disease only with domestically produced insulin, such as Rosinsulin, pictured here. Photo courtesy of Medsintez Pharmaceutical Plant

For Insufficient Enthusiasm
Court Rules Saratov Regional Organization of Chronic Diabetes Sufferers “Foreign Agents.” Activists “Undermined the State’s Authority” by Questioning Insulin Produced in Russia
Nadezhda Andreyeva
Novaya Gazeta
March 28, 2018

Saratov’s Frunza District Court today concluded its hearing of administrative charges against the Saratov Regional Organization of Chronic Diabetes Sufferers. Judge Maria Agisheva ruled the diabetics had violated the law on “foreign agents.”

The defense had asked for a postponement of the hearing, since Moscow human rights lawyer Nikolai Dronov, who had been representing the diabetics in court the past five months, was unable to travel to Saratov today. In addition, the organization’s president, Larisa Saygina, had not been able to read the findings of a forensic examination of the case, submitted to the court on Friday, May 25. Judge Agisheva rejected the defense’s motion, but announced a half-hour recess so the diabetics could read the findings of court-appointed experts.

The forensis examination was carried out by faculty members at the Saratov State Legal Academy (SGYuA). The court had attempted to engage specialists from RANEPA and the Kazan Interregional Expertise Center, but they had turned down the court’s request on various pretexts. SGYuA had also rendered its expert opinion last year, when the administrative case was in the process of being filed. As we reported earlier, Professor Ivan Konovalov saw signs of the work of “foreign agents” in the activities of the diabetics organization. The forensic examination was performed by his SGYuA colleagues Associate Professor Elena Koloyartseva and Professor Viktor Kupin.

According to SGYuA’s experts, the Saratov Regional Organization of Chronic Diabetes Sufferers was awarded a grant of 712,000 rubles [approx. €9,800] from foreign pharmaceutical companies. The authors of the forensic examination thus concluded the organization had engaged in political activity, namely, it had submitted critical remarks about the work of officials to the authorities. According to the political scientists, the organization’s former head, Yekaterina Rogatkina, had publicly expressed doubts about the quality of insulin produced in Russia, thus undermining the Russian state’s authority. [The emphasis here and elsewhere is in the original article—TRR.]

The experts found it noteworthy the media reported on the filing of administrative charges against the diabetics organization. In particular, the commentary of the organization’s current president, Larisa Saygin, filmed for the Saratov TV program “Open Channel” on a city street, was regarded by the experts as a solo picket. According to SGYuA’s faculty members, the news report had been deliberately aired three months before the presidential election in order to discredit presidential candidate Vladimir Putin.

We should recall at this point it was Nikita Smirnov, the head of Putin’s student campaign headquarters in Saratov, who had filed the complaint against the diabetics with the the local prosecutor’s office.

As the experts emphasized in their findings, opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky offered the Saratov diabetics legal assistance, which likewise testified to the organization’s guilt.

As indicated on SGYuA’s website, Professor Koloyartseva studied in the 1980s at the Saratov State Pedagogical Institute. In 2001, she was awarded a kandidat degree in political science. She serves on the public council of the Saratov Regional Duma. She is also a member of Civic Dignity, a grassroots organization that supports social and civic activism among young people and has been heavily involved in forums on moral and spiritual growth sponsored by the authorities.

According to the website Legal Russia, Viktor Kupin graduated from the Lenin Military Political Academy in 1978, while Saratov media outlets earlier reported he studied at the Engels Air Defense Academy.

Until 2007, Professor Kupin taught a course entitled “Philosophical and Political Problems of National Security” at military academies in Petersburg.

In 2004, Professor Kupin defended his doktor dissertation, entitled “The Geopolitical Imperatives of Global Security.”

In 2014, Kupin was an expert in the trial of Partnership for Development, an environmental organization that had operated in Saratov Region since 1995. The NGO received $42,000 from the US government to encourage civic involvement in the region’s villages and small towns. An anonymous complaint against Partnership for Development was filed with the prosecutor’s office on July 10, 2014. On July 22, an administrative case was opened against the organization under Article 19.34 of the Administrative Offenses Code (“Absence of registration in the relevant registry on the part of an organization performing the work of a foreign agent”).

Professor Kupin’s expert finding was ready the very same day. As he explained in court, he wrote the five pages of text in several hours, since he had been asked to do it “as soon as possible.” According to Professor Kupin, Partnership for Development showed clear signs of carrying out the “political orders of a foreign state, orders meant to undermine social stability, generate political tension in the region, expand the base of political influence on public opinion [sic], and implement US geopolitical interests.”

“The interest in Saratov Region was occasioned by its special place and exceptional geopolitical position in Russia as a lynch pin in the emergent Eurasian Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan,” wrote Professor Kupin. “[Partnership for Development’s] activity runs counter to the security interests of Russia, which opposes the uni-polar dictatorship of the world, headed by the US.”

Less than a month after the prosecutor received the anonymous complaint, a court ruled Partnership for Development was a “foreign agent.” It was fined 300,000 rubles. Its chair, Olga Pitsunova, was also personally fined 100,000 rubles. Partnership for Development closed up shop.

At today’s hearing, Judge Agisheva denied the defense’s motion to summon its own expert witnesses to the trial. The diabetics were fined 300,000 rubles [approx. 4,100 euros]. The organization’s ex-president, Ms. Rogatkina, told us the diabetics would appeal the ruling.

“We are discouraged. This case was absurd from the outset. We consider it a miscarriage a justice.”

Putinist youth activist Nikita Smirnov. Photo courtesy of Novaya Gazeta

Last year, Mr. Smirnov, a student at the Saratov Medical University and head of Vladimir Putin’s student campaign headquarters, asked the Frunza District Prosecutor’s Office to verify whether the work of the diabetic organizations was covered by the law on “foreign agents.”

As the future physician told us, he had “read on the internet that the organization was financed by foreign companies, I don’t remember which.” He had felt it was his “civic duty” to “send a signal.”

Translated by the Russian Reader

Wife of Tortured Antifascist Seeks Asylum in Finland

P6240121 In Finland

Wife of Antifascist Filinkov Seeks Political Asylum in Finland
Mediazona
April 10, 2018

Alexandra Aksyonova, wife of antifascist Viktor Filinkov, who spoke of being tortured by Russian Federal Security (FSB) officers and is currently being held in a remand prison outside Petersburg, has left Kyiv and requested political asylum in Finland. She reported the news to Mediazona herself.

She flew to Finland yesterday, April 9, and today she reported to a police station, where she requested political asylum. In conversation with Mediazona, she explained she had feared for her safety in Ukraine, noting there had been incidents in the past when Russian political activists had been abducted by the Russian security services in Ukraine, while local human rights defenders had told her it was nearly impossible to obtain political asylum in Ukraine.

In late January of this year, Ms. Aksyonova reported her husband, Viktor Filinkov, had disappeared on his way to Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, whence he was due to fly to Kyiv. Soon, the Telegram channel of the Petersburg court system’s press service reported Filinkov had been remanded in custody on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist community, a crime under Article 205.4 Part 2 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. Filinkov had, allegedly, confessed his guilt.

Screen shot of the message posted about Viktor Filinkov’s arrest on the Telegram channel of the Joint Press Service of the St. Petersburg Courts, January 25, 2018

Subsequently, during a visit by members of the Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) to the Petersburg remand prison where he was jailed, Filinkov said he had confessed his guilt after being tortured with a taser by FSB officers. Mediazona published Filinkov’s account of the first days after he was detained, an account in which he described in great detail how FSB officers had tortured him and threatened his wife. In March, Filinkov was transferred to a remand prison just across the border from Petersburg in Leningrad Region, which is thus off limits to the Petersburg PMC members who had regularly visited him in the Petersburg remand prison.

Petersburg antifascist Igor Shishkin also vanished in late January only to turn up later as an arrestee in the same case. He confessed his guilt. Despite the fact that members of the Petersburg PMC found evidence of injuries on his body, Shishkin said nothing about torture.

However, Petersburger Ilya Kapustin, detained as a witness in the very same case, claimed he had been tortured by the FSB. In February, he filed a complaint with the Russian Investigative Committee. He left Russia in March to seek asylum in Finland.

The Petersburg antifascists were detained as part of a case against an alleged “terrorist community,” code-named The Network. Online news and commentary website Republic, which was granted access to the case files, wrote that the FSB believed the alleged “terrorist community” had cells in Moscow, Petersburg, Penza, and Belarus. Members of the alleged terrorist group had supposedly planned a series of bomb blasts during the March 18 presidential election and this summer’s FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Russia.

The criminal case kicked off in October 2017 with the arrest of four antifascists in Penza. A fifth suspect in Penza was placed under house arrest, while a sixth suspect was detained in Petersburg and transferred to the Penza Remand Prison. Several of these young men subsequently recounted how the FSB had tortured them and planted weapons in their cars and flats. In particular, Ilya Shakursky and Dmitry Pchelintsev reported they had been tortured. Pchelintsev soon retracted his testimony.

Translation and photo by the Russian Reader

NB. If you are just now happening on this horrifying tale of torture and “law enforcement” run amok, read the first major international media report on the case, in Newsweek, and then read my translations of articles from Mediazona, OVD Info, and the other independent Russian media outlets who have been covering the story since it broke in late January 2018.

Putin’s Alleged Popularity

If you’re a sucker for rigged elections and skewed opinion polls, like most western journalists, you would have to admit that Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is Russia’s most popular politician, not Vladimir Putin. Photo courtesy of RFE/RL

Putin’s Unique Popularity (Spoiler: It Doesn’t Exist)
Alexei Navalny
April 5, 2018

This special video is for you, dear whingers. I find it impossible to read, three weeks running, articles discussing the unique way Putin picked up 76% of the total vote at the March 18 presidential election and see the mobs of people agonizing in the commentaries to these articles.

“Lord, how terrible! 76%. What horrible people Russians are! 76% voted for their own poverty and slavery. The only way out is emigration. It’s time to make a run for it,” etc.

Here is what I have to say about Putin’s alleged “largest percentage of votes ever” and his status as the “most popular politician.”

We simply have to get one thing through our heads. At this stage in our authoritarian country’s evolution, any moron who stands for election on behalf of the regime gets 80% of the vote. Literally. But this percentage means nothing at all.

Are you horrified by Putin’s huge vote total? Then why aren’t you groaning and moaning about the vote totals the regional governors have won in elections? Did you know you would have to try very hard to find a governor who got a smaller percentage of the vote the last time he was elected than Putin did this time round?

You don’t believe me? Here is a chart showing the percentage of votes the country’s regional leaders got the last time each of them stood for election. See whether you can find our so-called national leader, allegedly, the country’s champion when it comes to popular support.

Ranking	Name	Region	Total Votes (%)
1	Ramzan Kadyrov	Chechnya	97.9
2	Aman Tuleyev	Kemerovo	96.7
3	Rustam Minnikhanov	Tatarstan	94.4
4	Nikolai Merkushkin	Samara	91.4
5	Vladimir Volkov	Mordovia	89.2
6	Vadim Potomsky	Oryol	89.2
7	Alexei Gordeyev	Voronezh	88.8
8	Andrei Bocharov	Volgograd	88.5
9	Alexander Yevstifeyev	Mari El	88.3
10	Alexander Tsydenkov	Buryatia	87.4
11	Valery Shantsev	Nizhny Novgorod	86.9
12	Vladimur Yakushev	Tyumen	86.6
13	Boris Dubrovsky	Chelyabinsk	86.4
14	Ivan Belozertsev	Penza	86
15	Sholban Kara-ool	Tyva (Tuva)	85.7
16	Alexander Nikitin	Tambov	85.5
17	Alexander Kokorin	Kurgan	84.9
18	Vladimir Vladimirov	Stavropol	84.2
19	Alexei Dyumin	Tula	84.2
20	Veniamin Kondratiev	Krasnodar	83.6
21	Alexei Orlov	Kalmykia	82.9
22	Alexander Drozdenko	Leningrad Region	82.1
23	Maxim Reshetnikov	Perm	82.1
24	Oleg Korolyov	Lipetsk	81.8
25	Rustem Khamitov	Bashkortostan	81.7
26	Anton Alikhanov	Kaliningrad	81.1
27	Pavel Konkov	Ivanovo	80.3
28	Yuri Berg	Orenburg	80.3
29	Nikolai Lyubimov	Ryazan	80.2
30	Roman Kopin	Chukotka	79.8
31	Georgy Poltavchenko	St. Petersburg	79.3
32	Dmitry Mironov	Yaroslavl	79.3
33	Andrei Vorobyov	Moscow Region	78.9
34	Andrei Turchak	Pskov	78.4
35	Alexander Brechalov	Udmurtia	78.2
36	Vasily Golubev	Rostov	78.2
37	Alexander Bogomaz	Bryansk	78
38	Vladimir Miklushevsky	Maritime Territory	77.4
39	Vladimir Putin	Russian Federation	76.7
40	Igor Koshin	Nenetsk	76.7
41	Vladimir Ilyukhin	Kamchatka	75.5
42	Alexander Levintal	Jewish Autonomous Region	75.4
43	Alexander Zhilkin	Astrakhan	75.3
44	Valery Radayev	Saratov	74.6
45	Svetlana Orlova	Vladimir	74.3
46	Vladimir Pechony	Magadan	73.1
47	Alexander Karlin	Altai	72.9
48	Igor Rudenya	Tver	72.1
49	Anatoly Artamonov	Kaluga	71.3
50	Dmitry Ovsyannikov	Sevastopol	71.1

If I asked you what the 89% vote tally for Vadim Potomsky, ex-governor of Oryol Region (who claimed Ivan the Terrible had visited St. Petersburg), meant, you would replay without hesitating, “Nothing. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“He had no support,” you would say, laughing.

Then why does the alleged support for Putin scare you? Do you think that, in his case, the powers that be have employed other methods for generating support?

Of course, they haven’t. They have used the very same methods. Real rivals are not allowed to stand for elections. The public is smothered with lies and propaganda. Officials rig the vote, stuff the ballot boxes, and falsify the final tallies.

These are the three factors for turning political bosses in Russia into wildly popular politicians. Remove any of them from office and they will end up in the same place where all the former champions of the ballot boxes have now ended up, whether we are talking about Shantsev, Merkushkin or Tuleyev. As soon as they are removed from office, a wave of the magic wand turns their popularity into a pumpkin.

Tuleyev had almost unanimous “support” the last time he was elected: nearly 97% of all votes cast. How many of those people took to the streets to support him when he resigned? No one did.

The new governor of Kemerovo Region, Sergei Tsivilyov, is the new proprietor of that 97%.

Under this system, if Putin were placed tomorrow with his most unpopular underling—say, Dmitry Medevedev or Dmitry Rogozin—his replacement would get the same “record-breaking” 76% of the vote if an election were called.

So, there is no reason to worry and snivel.

Dig in your heels. Get involved in political debates. Expose official lies. Tell and disseminate the truth. Fight for your country and your future.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Valery Dymshits: After the Fight

Poster: “March 18, 2018. Russian Presidential Election. Russian Central Election Commission.” || Graffiti: “This is not an election.” Dixie grocery store, Central District, Petersburg. Photo by the Russian Reader

Valery Dymshits
Facebook
March 20, 2018

After the Fight

I wrote so often about the election or, rather, the non-election, that it is time to sum up.

I admit I had hoped for a qualitative decrease in turnout, but it is true we did not manage to achieve this.

Of course, the feverish ideas (I heard them voiced more than once, alas) that if it were not for the boycott, the “forces of good” either would have returned a mystical 10% of the vote tally (whatever for?) or made it into the second round (yes, yes, I read such claims with my own eyes) have nothing to do with reality. The fact the turnout was a few percentage points less, and Putin got a few percentage points more, makes no difference at all to anyone.

Nevertheless, I continue to regard the boycott as the right choice. Here is the reason for my stubbornness.

It is self-evident the election—not the day of March 18, but the process—was god knows what, only it was not an election.

Accordingly, the feeling of disgust kept many people from voting. Disgust is a worthy emotion. But that is not my point here.

In so-called normal countries, candidates and parties fight over half a percentage point, and a threepercent difference is deemed a crushing victory or crushing defeat. In our archaic autocracy, the regime and the populace communicate with each other in a language of symbols. As soon as it transpired the Kremlin was planning to fight for a 70% turnout and 70% of the total vote tally, I immediately realized the Kremlin wanted fifty percent of all possible voters, plus or minus one percent, to come out and vote for Putin and—voilà!—a 65% turnout and a 75% share of votes cast is exactly 50% of all potential voters. Meaning the Kremlin’s statement was purely symbolic and qualitative. Qualitative, symbolic collective action was, likewise, the only possible counterargument. It largely did not come off, but there were no other gestures of resistance except the boycott. The attempt to talk back to the regime quantitatively—for example, Yabloko’s responding to the argument “we have half of all voters” with the rejoinder “but we have 10% of everyone who voted” (i.e., “you have 50%, but we have a whole 5%”)—was ridiculous. Now, if it had been possible to counter the claim “we are robustly supported by half of the populace” with the countargument “ha-ha, you have the support of no more than a third of the populace,” but, alas, it proved impossible.

It is clear the numerous violations, committed here and there by zealots who were not thinking straight, generated a certain stench on election day, but I don’t imagine they had a serious impact on the outcome. It was the outcome that sincerely floored me.

The issue of voter turnout, so hysterically raised by the regime, had nothing to do with a fear of Navalny and the boycott, but with the fact that in the absence of real suspense and real rivals, Russians would be reluctant to go out and vote for Putin, who would be elected anyway. After Navalny was not allowed to run, it was impossible to generate any suspense, so the regime combined the carrot and the stick. Russians were driven and dragged to polling stations by the gazillions.

I would like to make a slight digression. First of all, you can make people who are subordinate and dependent—state employees and employees of state corporations—vote by forcing them or threatening them. The state’s share in the economy has been growing continuously: in 2005, the state controlled 35% of the Russian economy, while it now controls around 70%. That means the numbers of dependent Russians have also been growing.

The Kremlin felt it was vital to drag lazy Russians to the polls whatever the cost. As for voting as they should, they would do that all on their lonesome. The Kremlin knew they would do it, but I didn’t. I thought more or less that people would feel their weekend had been ruined. They had been forced to go somewhere and then forced to report back to their superiors. How swinish! So these people would do something spiteful: vote for Grudinin, vote for Sobchak, vote for Yavlinsky, vote for a four-letter word.

No, since they were dragged all the way to the polling stations anyway, enticed with carrots and prodded with sticks, they voted for Putin.

This is an important albeit gloomy outcome. It means the regime relies on a not terribly active but quite considerable majority. It means the regime can do whatever it likes with whomever it likes, and will be able to do so for a long time to come. Previously, it could do a lot of things, but not everything. Now, however, it can do anything. Strictly speaking, things have been this way for several years, but now it has been proven in a large-scale, expensive experiment. It is like in the Arabian tales: destroy a city, build a palace, jail a director, close a university, etc., just for the heck of it, just for the fun of it. This does not mean the regime will immediately start throwing its bulks around in all directions, but it can. A clear awareness of this circumstance should make us feel bleak.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Russian Socialist Movement: What Does the Presidential Election Show Us?

“March 2018. Russian Presidential Election: We Elect a President, We Choose a Future!” || “March 2018. Russian Presidential Election: Nice Scenery, Bad Play!” Photo courtesy of the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD)

Russian Socialist Movement (RSD)
Facebook
March 19, 2018

What Has the “Election” Shown Us?

It has shown us that the system for mobilizing dependent Russians (employees, servicemen, etc.) by management at all levels still functions, and that the managers in question (governors, factory directors, and heads of state-sector institutions) are still loyal to the regime. Putin’s personal power rests on the vulnerability of workers, who in Russia have been deprived of the right to strike. It also rests on the loyalty of the bureaucratic caste and corrupted business world, apathy and conformism, and control of the media.

In managed democracy’s topsy-turvy world, voter turnout and Putin’s total share of the vote are indices of political indifference, while boycotting the spectacle is a manifestation of civic activism. Elections in Russia have finally transmogrified into something like an oath of allegiance to the so-called national leader, which has nothing to do with a democratic expression of the popular will.

Undoubtedly, along with the administrative resource, the conservatism of a generation traumatized by the chaotic 1990s, the post-Crimea syndrome, and the careful casting of Putin’s opponents played their role. The Kremlin did its all to divide the forces of protest. Strawberry king Pavel Grudinin served as a scarecrow for voters who did not want a return to the Soviet Union, while Ksenia Sobchak exacerbated the fears of pro-Soviet conservatives vis-à-vis Yeltsinite liberals.

Supporters of the boycott were targeted for assaults and crackdowns. Despite the fact the Voters Strike did not produce a drop in the turnout (too many powerful forces were put into play for that to happen), non-participation in ersatz democracy was the only viable stance, the best option among a host of bad choices. Serving as polling station monitors on election day, we saw what props up both “voluntary” and forced voting. We are glad we did not support this well-rehearsed stunt with our own votes. Russia faces another six years of disempowerment, poverty, lies, and wars—but not in our name.

Only those people who were hoping for a miracle could be disappointed today. Grudinin, whose fans predicted he would make it into the second round, returned worse results than Gennady Zyuganov did in 2012. Some analysts expected that the candidate of the patriotic leftist camp would steal votes from Putin’s conservative electorate, but that did not happen. Nor did Grudinin convince chronic non-voters to go to the polls, since he did not offer them anything new.

Presidential elections, obviously, are not a focal point of politics and an opportunity for change. They are a mode of manipulating public opinion meant to leave everything the way it was.

We need a new politics that undermines the power structures making it possible to manipulate the populace in the interests of the elite. We need a politics that takes on the power of management over employees, the power of the patriarchy over women and young people, and the power of the bureaucracy over local self-government. Since electoral politics has essentially been banned, the democratic leftist movement must rely on nonconformist communities opposed to Putinism in the workplace, education and culture, city and district councils, the media, and the streets.

Only in this way, not as the result of yet more heavy-handed maneuvering by the regime or the opposition to fill the ever more obvious void of popular democratic (i.e., leftist) politics, can a force emerge that is a real alternative to the system. We are going to keep working on shaping that force.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Suffer the Little Children, Part 2

Sergei Akimov
Facebook
March 19, 2018

#Elections2018 #NoElections2018

A young woman with a child сame up to another observer and me.

“Where do I get the piece paper I have to photograph the kid with and send to the kindergarten?” she asked.

She showed us a photo of another child. He was holding a piece of paper a bit larger than a business card. The Russian flag, an inscription reading something like “2018 Elections,” and so on were printed on the piece of paper.

“That’s miserable and disgusting,” said my fellow observer.

“What can I do about it? The kindergarten asked for it,” the woman replied. She went off to continue her search.

To be honest, I did not see members of our polling station’s election commission giving people anything of the sort. They only handed out ballot papers.

On the other hand, we had a whole flashmob of parents taking snapshots of their (kindergarten-age) children dropping ballots into the ballot box.

Thanks to George Losev for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of the Cheboksary Municipal Education Department

Alexei Gaskarov: Why the Boycott Failed

Rally by Alexei Navalny’s supporters in Novokuznetsk, Siberia. Photo courtesy of sibreal.org

Alex Gaskarov
Facebook
March 19, 2018

The boycott campaign’s objective was to keep voter turnout under 50%. This would have been a clear signal the populace regarded the election as dishonest and unfair. We lost this battle, but we need to understand that not everything was smooth and cool on part of our opponents.

The prinicipal techniques for rigging the vote were as follows.

1. Reducing voter rolls. I hung out at a polling station in a Moscow Region village for a mere half an hour, and six of the twenty-two people who tried to vote while I was there were not listed on the rolls. In my hometown of Zhukovsky, the difference between the number of voters on the rolls and the growth in the town’s population between 2012 and 2018 was 5,000 people or 7% of all potential voters, meaning the voter rolls had been pruned. The point of the trick is simple. People who are unlikely to show up to vote are struck from the rolls, thus reducing the overall numbers of registered voters while increasing the relative weight of the turnout.

2. The new possibility of using the Gosuslugi.ru public services website to pick another polling station at which to vote. This is a cool and convenient option, but it is impossible to monitor. Theoretically, the number of voters who removed their names from the rolls at their home polling stations should have exactly matched the number of voters who temporarily added their names to the rolls at other polling stations. But how was it possible to verify this when we are talking about a country the sizeof Russia? The scary part is that two polling stations, say, are located side by side. They each have the same numbers of voters on their rolls. But in one polling station, the number of people who voted with absentee ballots is 280, while in the other polling station, it is 67.

3. The massive use of the administrative resource for ratcheting up the turnout. Did you know that a quarter of all voters showed up at their polling stations before ten in the morning? There were endless scandals over the fact they were not given some calendars or other that their children were supposed to collect for school. Officials also held simultaneous polls to rate public amenities in which they used ballots with people’s names printed on them. People photographed their ballot papers at polling stations. And, of course, everywhere there were exhibitions about the great outdoors in Crimea, fairs offering cheap food, pop music, and patriotic songs about our beloved president.

The problem is that, despite the administrative resource, participating in this farce was also a choice. If people had refused en masse to follow the orders of their bosses at work to vote a certain way, they would not have been fired or deprived of their bonus pay. But the distance between the value of elections and the discomfort caused by taking a brave civic stance is, for now, so huge, it is somehow ridiculous even to appeal to it.

Translated by the Russian Reader