Tag: BBC Russian Service

Killing the Spirit of Radio

Rush, “Spirit of the Radio” (1980)

In a strongly worded decision this week, a federal judge ordered that the Voice of America — its mission to provide news for countries around the world largely shut down for the past year by the Trump administration — come roaring back to life.

Whether or not that actually happens is anybody’s guess.

The government filed notice Thursday to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s order two days earlier to put hundreds of VOA employees who have been on paid leave the past year back to work. Lamberth had ruled on March 7 that Kari Lake, who was President Donald Trump’s choice to oversee the bureaucratic parent U.S. Agency for Global Media, didn’t have the authority to reduce VOA to a skeleton.

The Voice of America was established as a news source in World War II, beaming reports to many countries that had no tradition of a free press. Before Trump took office again last year, Voice of America was operating in 49 different languages, heard by an estimated 362 million people.

Trump’s team contended that government-run news sources, which also include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, were an example of bloated government and that they wanted news reporting more favorable to the current administration. With a greatly reduced staff, it currently operates in Iran, Afghanistan, China, North Korea and in countries with a large population of Kurds.

Lamberth, in his decision, said Lake had “repeatedly thumbed her nose” at laws mandating VOA’s operation.

Time to turn the page at VOA?

VOA director Michael Abramowitz said legislators in both parties understand the need for a strong operation and have set aside enough funding for the job to be done. “It is time for all parties to come together and work to rebuild and strengthen the agency,” he said.

Don’t expect that to happen soon. “President Trump was elected to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse across the administration, including the Voice of America — and efforts to improve efficiency at USAGM have been a tremendous success,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “This will not be the final say on the matter.”

Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White House bureau chief and a plaintiff in the lawsuit to bring it back, said that “restoring the physical infrastructure is going to take a lot of money and some time but it can be done. What is more difficult is recovering from the trauma that our newsroom has gone through.”

It’s an open question whether the administration wants a real news organization or a mouthpiece, said David Ensor, a former Voice of America director between 2010 and 2014. “We don’t know — maybe no one does at the moment — what the future holds,” he said.

The administration’s efforts over the past year to bolster friendly outlets and fight coverage that displeases them offer a clue, even though Congress has required that Voice of America be an objective and unbiased news source. This week it was announced that Christopher Wallace, an executive at the conservative network Newsmax who had previously spent 15 years at Fox News Channel, will be the new deputy director at VOA. Abramowitz didn’t know he was getting a new deputy until it was announced.

Widakuswara wouldn’t comment on what Wallace’s appointment might mean. “I’m not going to pass judgment before seeing his work,” she said.

While Lamberth ordered more than a thousand employees on leave to go back to work, it’s not clear how many of them moved on to other jobs or retired in the past year. The judge also said he did not have the authority to bring back hundreds of independent contractors who were terminated.

One employee who left is Steve Herman, a former White House bureau chief and national correspondent at VOA and now executive director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation at the University of Mississippi. Despite the court decisions, he questions whether the Trump administration would oversee a return to what the organization used to be.

“I’m a bit of a pessimist,” Herman said. “I think it’s going to be very difficult.”

An administration loath to admit defeat

Besides fighting to shut it down, Trump is loath to admit defeat. Last week, the White House nominated Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, putting it more firmly within the administration’s control. Her nomination requires Senate approval.

“Is Marco Rubio’s State Department going to allow objective journalism in 49 languages?” Herman asked. “I don’t think so. I would want that to happen, but that’s a fairy tale.”

In the budget bill passed in February, Congress set aside $200 million for Voice of America’s operation. While that represents about a 25% cut in the agency’s previous appropriation, it sent a bipartisan message of support, said Kate Neeper, VOA’s director of strategy and performance evaluation. Besides being a plaintiff with Widakuswara in the lawsuit to restore the agency, she has helped some of her colleagues deal with some of their own problems over the past year, including immigration issues.

“There is a lot of enthusiasm for going back to work,” she said. “People are eager to show up on Monday.”

The hunger for information from Voice of America in Iran when he was director was a clear example of what the organization meant, Ensor said. Surveys showed that between a quarter and a third of Iran’s households tuned in to VOA once a week, primarily on satellite television. Occasionally the government would crack down and confiscate satellite dishes, but Iranians could usually quickly find replacements, he said.

“I believe in Voice of America as a news organization and as a voice of America,” Ensor said. “It was important, and it can be again.”

Source: David Bauder, “Judge orders Voice of America be put back together again. What are the chances that will happen?” Associated Press, 20 March 2026

4’42”, a found audio piece captured in my car while listening to KSPB, 91.9 FM, Pebble Beach, on 23.03.2026

Who are we?

KSPB, Pebble Beach, 91.9 FM is a commercial-free, student-run, radio station, that has been broadcasting from Stevenson School in Pebble Beach for over 40 years.

The station is student run and includes staff positions, from webmaster to program director. Before applying for a live show on air, each student is required to take a class to learn about Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, and how to operate the station independently. The students decide the genre of music for their specific show, but the general programming is alternative rock with specialized shows featuring hip-hop and international music. However, some students prefer to run their own talk shows.

With its connection to the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS) the station fills out its schedule with content from the BBC World Service, American Public Media, and other public radio producers such as WAMC (Albany) and KCRW (Santa Monica). It also obtains content from its affiliation with the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

KSPB has listeners in five counties in California – Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Santa Clara and San Mateo – with a potential total listenership of more than 1 million. Also, with the recent addition of streaming, KSPB is now available worldwide!

Source: kspb.org

R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe” (1981)

R.E.M. disbanded back in 2011. But the seminal indie-rock group is back with new five-track EP “Radio Free Europe 2025,”containing previously unreleased tracks and a new remix of the song. Proceeds from the vinyl pressing will benefit the U.S. government’s Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which are under attack from the Trump administration.

The EP, coming more than four decades after the 1981 release of “Radio Free Europe” on college radio, coincides with the 75th anniversary of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as well as World Press Freedom Day (which falls on May 3). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was established 75 years ago and currently broadcasts news and information in 27 languages to 23 countries where a free press is either banned by the government or under threat.

Members of R.E.M. said the mission of promoting free expression has always resonated with the band.

“Whether it’s music or a free press — censorship anywhere is a threat to the truth everywhere,” Michael Stipe, lead singer and founding member of R.E.M., said in a statement. “On World Press Freedom Day, I’m sending a shout-out to the brave journalists at Radio Free Europe.” Bassist Mike Mills added, “Radio Free Europe’s journalists have been pissing off dictators for 75 years. You know you’re doing your job when you make the right enemies. Happy World Press Freedom Day to the ‘OG’ Radio Free Europe.”

Despite the song’s name, Mills says in the liner notes to the two-disc edition of R.E.M.’s “And I Feel Fine… The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987” that it has “nothing to do” with the broadcaster: “We just liked the title.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty president and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement, “To me, R.E.M.’s music has always embodied a celebration of freedom: freedom of expression, lyrics that make us think, and melodies that inspire action. Those are the very aims of our journalists at Radio Free Europe — to inform, inspire, and uphold freedoms often elusive to our audiences. We hold dictators accountable. They go to great lengths to silence us — blocking our websites, jamming our signals, and even imprisoning our colleagues.”

In March, President Trump issued an executive order seeking to dismantle Voice of America, which oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and others. The broadcasters have won court rulings to reverse Trump’s move but the White House has withheld funding, leading to layoffs and uncertainty at the outlets. On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $12 million in congressionally appropriated funding for Radio Free Europe.

On Friday, the heads of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks sent a letter to Trump officials urging them to restore funding “immediately.” That came as Radio Free Asia laid off most of its staff. “Our journalists are terrified that the withdrawal of support from their employers will lead to harassment, prison, and worse,” they said in the letter, per CNN. “We urge you to restore our funding immediately before further irreparable reputational harm is done to the United States — and before innocent lives are needlessly and recklessly lost.”

R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe 2025” is available to stream and download now. A limited-edition, 10-inch orange-vinyl pressing is available for pre-order now exclusively via the official R.E.M. store and independent record stores; it will be released Sept. 12. Proceeds from all vinyl sales will go to RFE/RL, an editorially independent nonpartisan and nonprofit corporation.

Released through Craft Recordings, the “Radio Free Europe 2025” EP was overseen by the band’s original producer Mitch Easter. The record opens with the 2025 remix by Grammy-winning producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol, Taylor Swift, The Killers), who also produced R.E.M.’s final two studio albums, “Accelerate” and “Collapse Into Now.” Lee “gives the track a fresh take while staying true to its indie-rock DNA,” according to Creative Recordings. Rounding out the EP are four of Mitch Easter’s original 1981 recordings: the Hib-Tone single mix of “Radio Free Europe,” its flip-side “Sitting Still,” the “Wh. Tornado” demo, and Easter’s never-before-released 1981 remix “Radio Free Dub.”

In 2009, “Radio Free Europe” was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry for “setting the pattern for later indie-rock releases.”

Formed in 1980 in Athens, Georgia, R.E.M. had a three-decade run of multi-platinum sales before amicably disbanding in 2011. Over the course of their career, R.E.M. released 15 studio albums, won three Grammys, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2007) as well as the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2024).

Here’s the track list for the new EP:

Radio Side

  1. Radio Free Europe 2025 (Jacknife Lee Remix)*
  2. Radio Free Dub (Mitch Easter 1981 Remix)*

Liberty Side

  1. Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)
  2. Sitting Still (Original Hib-Tone B-Side)
  3. Wh. Tornado (From Cassette Set) **

* Never before released
** First time on digital and vinyl

R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe 2025 (Jacknife Lee Remix) RFE/RL Dispatch” (2025)

Source: Todd Spangler, “R.E.M. Releases New ‘Radio Free Europe’ EP, With Proceeds Benefiting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Amid Trump Cuts,” Variety, 2 May 2025

In the 1970s, at the height of Soviet jamming of the BBC, the most coveted short-wave radios in the USSR were made by the VEF factory in Latvia – which was then part of the Soviet Union.

A generation of young Russians grew up learning how to twist the dial with great precision, to find whichever BBC signal had somehow bypassed the howling and whistling of the jammers. When you found it, it a window opened into a whole other world – of uncensored news, literature and western pop music, all coming to you live from London.

Those days are long gone. The jamming stations have all closed down. The VEF factory doesn’t make radios anymore. And Latvia is now an independent country. But since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the information space in Russia has been shrinking.

A new generation of Russians are now having to fight to stay connected to the world. And our team has to battle internet blocking and shutdowns to keep on reaching them. Four years ago, the Russian Service Moscow newsroom had to leave Russia but their work continues in exile, and their new home by a twist of fate just happens to be in Latvia.

Over the past eighty years history often seems to have repeated itself.

Take the first ever Russian Service radio news bulletin from 24 March 1946. The news reader was the splendidly named Mrs Sonia – Betty – Horsfall. The top story was all about Iran – and the ongoing negotiations for Soviet troops to withdraw after their wartime occupation.

Now it’s the US-Israeli war on Iran that’s dominating the news. And to reach audiences in Russia in 2026, we have to tell the story in a myriad of ways across different platforms. Our website is blocked in Russia – as are YouTube, Instagram, Facebook Tiktok, and WhatsApp. The messenger app Telegram used to be our only uncensored way of getting information in and out of Russia. But not any more.

These days Russians can only reach the BBC website and social media channels – and many other banned sites – by using VPNs – virtual private networks, which allow them to bypass the censors. Everyone from young people to the shortwave radio generation has had to learn how to do it. “But what will we do if they start blocking VPNs and shutdown internet access altogether?” one of our team asked the other day.

It’s a question we often ask our colleagues in BBC News Persian, who are now reporting the war on their country despite an almost complete internet blackout in Iran. We have so much to learn from them – and increasingly, sadly, so much in common with them.

We had to leave Russia in 2022 because it was no longer safe for our staff to continue doing their jobs there. Even calling Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine a war, was against the law.

Getting nearly 50 shell-shocked BBC Russian journalists, their families and their pets out of Russia and into Latvia now feels like the easy bit. Building new lives, learning a new language, and finding new ways to keep reporting Russia from the outside has been a much tougher challenge.

“The thing that’s really helped is knowing we’re all in this together and we can all support each other,” says one of our team.

But everyone has paid the price for carrying on. No-one can travel safely back to Russia. Home and family have become unreachable. Reunions have to happen in third countries.

And even in exile our staff are still being pursued. Eight have been designated ‘foreign agents’ by the authorities in Russia – required by law to put disclaimers on all their published work, taken to court and fined in absentia for failing to comply, heading inevitably towards criminal prosecution.

“If I get a criminal record in Russia, then the list of places where I can safely meet my Mum is going to get even shorter,” one colleague told me the other day.

There have already been cases of Russians discovering too late that they’re on the international wanted list in countries friendly to Moscow.

When the Russian Service first went on air, Winston Churchill had just made his famous post-war speech warning that an iron curtain was coming down over Eastern Europe. In 2026 a digital version of that iron curtain has come down again.

The post-revolutionary emigres and the Cold War exiles who lead the Russian Service in those earlier radio days, have now been replaced by a new generation who never thought that one day it would be their turn to leave.

“The Russia I grew up in has completely disappeared,” says one of our ex-Moscow team. “In the blink of an eye the freedom, the possibilities, and the excitement have all gone. I don’t want to think that I’ll never go back,” she adds “But right now it’s hard to believe.”

Russians clearly want more than their state-controlled news media is currently giving them and after 80 years, I hope our first newsreader Mrs Horsfall would be proud to see how many of them still trust the BBC.

This story was broadcast on ‘From Our Own Correspondent’, on BBC Radio 4 on 21 March 2026.

Source: Jenny Horton, “BBC News Russian at 80: Still here, still growing, still battling the censors,” BBC News Russian, 24 March 2026. This report was added to the original post on 24 March 2026. ||||| TRR

“The Squadron Did Not Notice the Fallen Fighter”

Silly little fly was burning on a candle
Burning the small fry, smoke that is so tender
Little star has fallen into the puddle by the steps
The squadron did not notice the fallen fighter

The dead one did not live, the sick’s not kicked the bucket
The seer was not blind, the sleeper is still tucked in
Merry beating brave hearts (in Morse code would tell)
The squadron did not notice the fallen fighter

No-one was more dear, no-one was more pretty
No-one was more pained, no-one was more happy
There was no beginning and there was no end
The squadron did not notice the fallen fighter

— Eric Boros, “The Squadron,” from Secondhand Guitar, released February 3, 2014 • Music and words: Yegor Letov • Translation by Szarapow

Source: Vialka (Bandcamp). Thanks to Szarapow for the heads-up.

For months, Elvira Kaipova had not heard from her son Rafael, a Russian soldier deployed in Ukraine.

Military officials responded to her repeated questions about his whereabouts by saying he was on active duty and therefore incommunicado. Then, late last November, two days after they again made that assertion, she learned that he had gone missing on Nov. 1 — from a Telegram channel that helps military families.

“We lost your son,” Aleksandr Sokolov, the officer in Rafael’s unit in charge of family liaison, told her when she traveled to its headquarters in western Russia.

“Lost him how?” she says she responded, alarmed and angry, especially when the officer explained that after Rafael had failed to check in by radio, a search had proved impossible. “How do we search for him?” she says the officer told her.

Variations on that grim scenario have been repeated countless times since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian Ministry of Defense lacks any formal, organized effort to track down legions of missing soldiers, according to bereaved families, private organizations that try to assist them and military analysts. Relatives, stuck in limbo, fend for themselves with scant government information.

The ministry itself declined to comment for this article. Mr. Sokolov, the liaison officer, said in a text message: “You do realize that I can’t comment on anything.”

Even if Russia and Ukraine reach a peace agreement, the hunt for missing soldiers is expected to endure for years, if not decades.

[…]

Source: Neil MacFarquhar and Milena Mazaeva, “Message From the Russian Military: ‘We Lost Your Son,’” New York Times, 3 May 2025

Last year was the deadliest for Russian forces since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine: at least 45,287 people were killed.

This is almost three times more than in the first year of the invasion and significantly exceeds the losses of 2023, when the longest and deadliest battle of the war was taking place in Bakhmut.

At the start of the war, losses happened in waves during battles for key locations, but 2024 saw a month-on-month increase in the death toll as the front line slowly edged forward, enabling us to estimate that Russia lost at least 27 lives for every square kilometre of Ukrainian territory captured.

The BBC Russian Service, in collaboration with independent media outlet Mediazona and a team of volunteers, has processed open source data from Russian cemeteries, military memorials and obituaries.

So far, we have identified the names of 106,745 Russian soldiers killed during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The true number is clearly much higher. Military experts estimate our number may cover between 45% and 65% of deaths, which would mean 164,223 to 237,211 people [have been killed].

20 February 2024 was the deadliest day for Russian forces that year.

Among the casualties were Aldar Bairov, Igor Babych and Okhunjon Rustamov, who were with the 36th Motorised Rifle Brigade when four Ukrainian long-range HIMARS missiles hit a training ground near the city of Volnovakha in occupied Donetsk.

They had been ordered to line up for a medal ceremony. Sixty-five servicemen were killed, including their commander Col Musaev. Dozens more were wounded.

Bairov, 22 and from Buryatia in eastern Siberia, had studied to be a food sanitation specialist but was drafted for mandatory military service and then signed a contract to become a professional soldier.

In February 2022 he went to fight in Ukraine and was part of the battle for Borodyanka during his brigade’s advance towards Kyiv in March 2022. The town was almost completely destroyed. Ukrainian sources say Russian soldiers were involved in the execution of civilians.

Aldar Bairov (left), Okhunjon Rustamov (C) and Igor Babych were all killed in a strike on 20 February last year

Okhunjon Rustamov, 31 and from Chita in Siberia, had worked as a welder after serving a mandatory term in special forces. He was mobilised during a partial draft in October 2022.

Unlike Rustamov, Igor Babych, 32, had volunteered to go to war. He had worked with adults and children diagnosed with cerebral palsy, helping them with physical therapy until April 2023.

In total, 201 Russian soldiers died on that day, according to our data.

A few hours after the strike on the training ground, then-Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu met Vladimir Putin to bring him news of military success from the front line.

There was no mention of the training ground attack, nor was there any word from the Ministry of Defence in its daily reports.

A relative of Okhunjon Rustamov said she had already buried three close family members over the course of the war. “In December 2022, my husband died. On 10 February 2024, my godfather. And on 20 February my half-brother. From one funeral to the next.”

In our analysis, we prioritised exact dates of death for soldiers. If that wasn’t available, we used the date of the funeral or the date the death was reported.

In the first two years of the war, 2022 and 2023, Russian losses followed a wave-like pattern: heavy fighting with high casualties alternated with periods of relative calm.

In 2023, for example, most casualties occurred between January and March, when Russian forces attempted to capture the cities of Vuhledar and Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast.

In the first year of the full-scale invasion, according to our calculations, Russia lost at least 17,890 soldiers. This number does not include losses from Russia’s two proxy forces in occupied eastern Ukraine.

In 2023, the number rose to 37,633.

In 2024, there was no period showing a significant fall in casualties. Bloody battles for Avdiivka and Robotyne were followed by intensified assaults towards Pokrovsk and Toretsk.

In August 2024, Russian conscripts were killed when Ukrainian forces stormed over the border into the Kursk region. From August 6 to 13 alone, an estimated 1,226 Russian soldiers died.

However, the heaviest overall losses occurred during a slow Russian advance in the east between September and November 2024, according to leading US military analyst Michael Kofman.

“Tactics emphasised repeated attacks with dispersed assault groups, using small infantry fire teams, which increased overall casualties relative to terrain gained,” he explained.

After almost two years of intense fighting, Russian forces seized the logistical hub of Vuhledar in Donetsk on 1 October 2024.

According to estimates by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), from September to November 2024, Russian forces captured 2,356 square kilometres of Ukraine.

Even then, Ukrainian forces at the front did not collapse.

The cost of this advance was at least 11,678 Russian military deaths.

Actual losses figures are likely higher. We have only accounted for soldiers and officers whose names appeared in publicly available obituaries and whose dates of death or funeral fell within this period.

Overall in 2024, according to ISW, Russia captured 4,168 square kilometres of land.

If we assume that our figure of 45,287 confirmed deaths in 2024 is about 40% of the full number, then the total number would be closer to 112,000 fatalities last year.

This means that for each square kilometre captured, 27 Russian soldiers were killed, and this does not include the wounded.

How losses are changing recruitment

Russia has found ways of replenishing its depleted forces.

“Russian recruitment also increased in the second half of 2024 and exceeded Russian casualties, allowing Moscow to generate additional formations,” says Michael Kofman.

One-time payments to soldiers signing new contracts were increased in three Russian regions. Combat salaries for volunteer soldiers are five to seven times higher than the average wage in most regions.

We also class as volunteers those who signed up to avoid criminal prosecution, which was allowed by law in 2024.

Volunteers have become the fastest-growing category of casualties in our calculations, making up a quarter of those we have identified.

In 2023-2024, thousands of volunteers who signed contracts with the Ministry of Defence were sent to the front lines only 10–14 days later. Such minimal training will have dramatically reduced their chances of survival, experts say.

One Russian republic, Bashkortostan, has seen the highest numbers of casualties, with 4,836 confirmed deaths. Most were from rural areas and 38% had gone to fight with no military experience.

The one-time payment for signing a Russian army contract in Ufa is 34 times the region’s average salary of 67,575 rubles (£600).

Calculating deaths from open source data will always be incomplete.

This is because the bodies of a significant number of soldiers killed in the past months may still be on the battlefield and retrieving them presents a risk to serving soldiers.

The true death toll for Russian forces increases significantly if you include those who fought against Ukraine as part of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

An assessment of obituaries and reports of searches for fighters who have lost contact suggests between 21,000 and 23,500 people may have been killed by September 2024.

That would bring the total number of fatalities to 185,000 to 260,700 military personnel.

CLARIFICATION 5 May 2025: This story has been updated to make it clear that the figure of 27 losses per sq km is based on an estimated number of deaths last year of about 112,000.

Source: Olga Ivshina, “How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024,” BBC News Russian, 4 May 2025. This article was also published on Substack on 6 May 2025.

Yegor Letov, “The Squadron Did Not the Fallen Fighter” (1990)

Source: YouTube

Глупый мотылёк 
Догорал на свечке
Жаркий уголёк
Дымные колечки
Звёздочка упала в лужу у крыльца…
Отряд не заметил потери бойца

Мёртвый не воскрес
Хворый не загнулся
Зрячий не ослеп
Спящий не проснулся
Весело стучали храбрые сердца…
Отряд не заметил потери бойца

Не было родней
Не было красивей
Не было больней
Не было счастливей
Не было начала, не было конца…
Отряд не заметил потери бойца

Source: Grazhdanskaya Oborona Official Website

Defenders of the Fatherland Day

Source: Russian Foreign Ministry (Facebook), 23 February 2025

Up to nearly a half of Russian casualties in the war against Ukraine could be men who had few or tenuous links to Russia, or were living on the margins of society, according to new research by the BBC. Their deaths are largely ‘unseen’ by ordinary Russians.

Alongside the independent media outlet Mediazona, and with the help of a network of volunteers, BBC Russian uses open source data to chart the names of Russian soldiers killed in the war. To date, we have confirmed the names of more than 95,000 of them – implying a true death toll of up to 235,000.

This figure doesn’t include those who were killed serving in the militia of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics which we estimate to be between 21,000 and 23,500 fighters.

BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022.

Continue reading “Defenders of the Fatherland Day” →

NUMB3RS (Wages of War)

Illustration by Danny Berkovskii for Mediazona. Source: New Tab

Aided by a team of volunteers, journalists at Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian Service have identified 41,731 Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine using open sources. This number includes employees of the Wagner mercenary group, but it does not include those who fought on Russia’s side in military units fielded by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” the BBC noted in an article published on Friday, 12 January.

According to the article, more than 1,100 Russian military personnel killed in the war were under 20 years of age. Since the State Duma approved amendments to the relevant laws, in April 2023, thus permitting 18-year-old high school graduates to sign military service contracts, 48 Russians born in 2004 and five born in 2005 (who were thus “barely 18 years old” when they enlisted) have perished in the war.

As of 11 January, 2,377 airborne troops, 913 marines, 537 members of the Russian National Guard’s special forces, 450 members of the GRU’s special forces, 206 military pilots, and 77 FSB and FSO officers have been killed in combat operations.

The BBC points out that the number of casualties among those who voluntarily signed a contract to serve in the Russian armed forces has increased in recent months. Thus, volunteers, prisoners, and private mercenary company “recruits” now account for 37 percent of all confirmed losses 0n the Russian side. Another 12 percent of the identified casualties were draftees (of whom 5,005 died in Ukraine and 62 in Russia).

Source: Yevgeny Zhukov, “Journalists have confirmed the deaths of 41,700 Russian soldiers in Ukraine,” Deutsche Welle Russian Service, 13 January 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Russian forces in Ukraine currently consist of 462,000 military and 35,000 National Guard troops, responsible for the functioning of the occupation regime. This number of troops allows the Russians to carry out rotation — to withdraw units and subdivisions and bring them to the front line.

Source: Monique Camarra, “Jan 13: E-Stories,” EuroFile, 12 January 2024

When looking for a new advertising/PR agency in Ukraine in autumn 2023, PepsiCo made it a condition for a potential partner to exclude any mention of the war, or support for Ukraine and its army in future communications, according to a brief seen by B4Ukraine.

“NO: mention of war, hostilities, aggression, military personnel (from Brand side), Armed Forces of Ukraine. NO: support Ukraine and the army. NO: negative connotation, creating a feeling of ‘unsafe,’” states the “Pepsi restrictions” section of the brief.

The B4Ukraine Coalition contacted Pepsi offices in Ukraine and the US to ask for comment on this article but at the time of publication had not received any response.

In the meantime, the October 17 message on PepsiCo’s Instagram page announced that “PepsiCo volunteers distributed food kits to 1,200 families in the city of Borodyanka, whose homes were destroyed.” The message does not specify who exactly brutally destroyed the homes of these people.

Perhaps because PepsiCo’s Russia net profit increased by 333% to $525 million last year and the company paid about $115 million in taxes to the Kremlin? Treating such contributions as support for the economy of the aggressor state, Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) in September included PepsiCo in the list of international sponsors of war.

PepsiCo produces soft drinks, juices, chips, snacks, dairy products and other food products under the main brands Chester’s, Chipsy, Lay’s, Mirinda, Pasta Roni, Pepsi, Propel, Sandora, 7Up, Simba, Snack a Jacks, Sonric’s, Tropicana, etc.

The company has 19 factories, about 20,000 employees, 40,000 agricultural workers, and 600 open vacancies in Russia, according to the NACP.

The company announced the cessation of advertising activities and the production of some beverages in Russia in March 2022, while still allowing other products, such as infant formula and baby food to be sold, in order, as PepsiCo put it, “stay true to the humanitarian aspect of its business.” Yet in fact, the company continues the production and distribution of chips, snacks, and soft drinks. According to Bloomberg, PepsiCo’s revenue rose 16% in Russia and profits quadrupled, and the soda maker said operations in Russia accounted for 5% of consolidated net revenue for 2022, up from 4% a year earlier.

Now the iconic Pepsi cola is sold under the Evervess-Cola brand, although regular Pepsi Cola is still easy easily purchasable in Russian supermarkets due to the so-called parallel imports, when goods are imported without the manufacturer’s permission.

At the beginning of September last year, PepsiCo came under fire over its Russian business when the firm’s products were dropped by the Finnish parliament and Scandinavian Airlines’ operator SAS, and already on September 21, ironically, [a] Russian missile damaged a PepsiCo plant near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

A global [c]oalition of civil society organizations, B4Ukraine, is calling on PepsiCo to exit Russia ASAP and for the US government to issue a business advisory, warning US businesses of the growing legal, reputational, and financial risks of doing business under military control in Russia.

Source: “‘No support for Ukraine and its army’: PepsiCo restricts mentions of war in its PR,” B4Ukraine. Thanks to Monique Camarra (EuroFile) for the heads-up.

The war has markedly changed the Russian economy. Moscow has had to adjust its policy to fund its armed conflict against Kyiv, maintaining its military apparatus and police force, and integrating the territories it has annexed from Ukraine. These priorities have necessitated significant spending commitments that collectively threaten Russia’s economic stability. The Kremlin will spend six percent of GDP (more than eight percent when combined with spending on national security) on the war in 2024. This is more than the 3.8 percent of GDP that the United States spent during the Iraq war, although it falls short of the prodigious sums the Soviet Union allocated during the years of stagnation and its invasion of Afghanistan (18 percent of GDP).

Military spending has even eclipsed social spending—currently less than five percent of GDP—for the first time in Russia’s post-Soviet history. This pivot toward a militarized economy threatens social and developmental needs. The four annexed regions of Ukraine have already received the equivalent of $18 billion, and in 2024 almost $5 billion is expected to be transferred from the federal budget to regional budgets. No other regions in Russia receive this level of investment, which only increases interregional inequality. Rather than restore dilapidated housing in Russia, the Kremlin prefers to spend money on building houses and roads in annexed territories, to replace the houses and roads that Russian troops destroyed during their brutal invasion.

Russian industry has been transformed, with defense sectors now overshadowing civilian industries. The defense sector’s enterprises are now operating at a fever pitch and, as a consequence, any surge in demand is likely to force prices to rise because of the sector’s inability to increase supply. The military sector is receiving a disproportionately high amount of government spending, and it is also siphoning off labor from the civilian workforce, leading to an abnormally low unemployment rate of 2.9 percent. Before the war, Russia’s unemployment rate typically stood at around four to five percent. The military and public sectors now employ 850,000 more people than in late 2022–23. The invasion of Ukraine also prompted about 500,000 Russians to emigrate in 2022, driving shortages of qualified specialists and blue-collar workers.

Meanwhile, living standards have risen across Russia, and the percentage of Russians living below the poverty line has dropped to 9.8 percent, the lowest since 1992. Naturally, there are regional variations, and areas that have sent a significant number of their men to fight in Ukraine—including Altai Krai, the Altai Republic, Buryatia, Chechnya, and Dagestan—have witnessed the fastest income growth in low-income groups. This relative increase in prosperity can be expected to continue as Moscow disburses funds to the families of the deceased and wounded.

Overall, the Kremlin wishes to maintain an illusion of normality and even increasing prosperity for its citizens. The distortions in the labor market have pushed up salaries in military industry, as well as in civilian manufacturing, because of the need to compete to attract workers from well-paying military plants. Moscow is, meanwhile, making high payments to soldiers and people mobilized to fight in Ukraine, which are driving consumption. At the same time, thanks to a supply of cheap credit, the government is handing out subsidized mortgages, that are, for the moment, shielding families from economic reality.

Source: Alexandra Prokopenko, “Putin’s Unsustainable Spending Spree: How the War in Ukraine Will Overheat the Russian Economy,” Foreign Affairs, 8 January 2024

Elsewhere there are signs that the invasion of Ukraine may have disrupted the Russian economy more severely than the frothy party scene suggests. The Olivier salad, a mayonnaise-drenched confection of root vegetables, sausage and boiled eggs, is a staple at every table during the holidays. This winter the price of eggs suddenly rocketed (no one is quite sure why, but it may have been because farms were short of labour since so many workers have been conscripted or left the country). In some regions people cannot afford a box of six eggs and have to buy them individually. One pensioner even raised this with Putin during the president’s annual end-of-year call-in with the public. Putin promised to look into it.

Source: Kate de Pury, “Gucci is cheap and eggs are pricey in Russia’s surreal economy: War spending has Russians partying like it’s 2021. But some are also stockpiling dollars,” 1843 Magazine (The Economist), 10 January 2024

In the two years that have passed since the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, residents of Ukraine have become less likely to use the Russian language, according to a press release on the outcome of research done by the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in cooperation with the University of Bath and the Technical University of Munich, which was published on Wednesday, 10 January.

Language plays a leading role in the identity of post-Soviet Ukraine, the authors of the study say. Many Ukrainians are fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian. And yet, only a few years ago, 50 to 60 percent of the country’s residents called Ukrainian their principal language of communication. After the Maidan protests in late 2013, sparked by then-Ukrainian President [Viktor] Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU, and Russia’s subsequent  annexation of Crimea in 2014, more Ukrainians abandoned Russian.

[…]

The researchers explore this trend in a study published in the journal Communications Psychology. Using artificial intelligence and statistical analysis, they examined more than four million messages posted by 63,000 Ukrainian users on the social network X (formerly Twitter) between January 2020 and October 2022.

According to the study’s authors, users began switching from Russian to Ukrainian even before the large-scale Russian invasion, but this trend increased dramatically after the war began. In their opinion, this change in user behavior was a political reaction to events. Users wanted to distance themselves from both support for the war and Russia as such, so they started using Ukrainian en masse.

Source: Sergei Gushcha, “Ukrainians use Russian less since war began,” Deutsche Welle Russian Service, 10 January 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

The full-scale war in Ukraine, which began almost two years ago, has led to increased violence in Russia itself. Military personnel with PTSD and criminals recruited into combat return from the front and maim and kill people in civilian life. Sometimes conversations about the war even end in violence. Mediazona and New Tab have uncovered over thirty criminal convictions for assaults and murders that occurred during quarrels about the “special military operation.” (The courts use the official wording for the war as mandated by the authorities.)

In Berdsk, Novosibirsk Region, draftee Khuler Mongush stabbed Nikolai Berezutsky, a passerby. The latter had asked Mongush why he was going to Ukraine. Saying that he was going there “to defend the Motherland,” the mobilized man attacked Berezutsky. Mongush was sentenced to eight years in prison for murder.

In the Irkutsk Region, farmer Maxim Khalapkhanov was drinking with an acquaintance, who began ridiculing the state of the Russian army during the war. Khalapkhanov eventually got angry and killed the acquaintance with a knife, whose handle was decorated in the colors of the Russian flag, and drew the letter Z on his stomach with a fireplace poker. Khalapkhanov was sentenced to seven years in a high-security penal colony.

Anton Rakov, a resident of Orenburg, was drinking with a new acquaintance. They began arguing about the war. Rakov did not like what his interlocutor was saying and killed him. While his victim breathed his final breaths, Rakov recorded a video with the dying man in the background, shouting, “This is what will happen to anyone who disagrees with me!”

Viktor Konnov of Zlatoust beat up a friend who said something nice about Ukraine, while Ivanovo resident Mikhail Vitruk received two and a half years in a penal colony for beating up his girlfriend, who allegedly called him a “Nazi” while they were watching the news.

In 2020, Mikhail Taskin attempted to shoot three people over a parking space and was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony, whence he was freed by the Wagner Group. Taskin spent several months in combat, where he lost a leg, eventually returning to his native village of Nerchinskiy Zavod in the Transbaikal Territory. In August 2023, he got into a fight at a local cafe. Taskin mocked the waitresses and promised to “hump all of them.” The incident ended in a brawl, and the police detained five people, but not Taskin was not among them. His sister and the local authorities argued that the disabled man had been assaulted by “opponents of the war.” But the news website Regnum discovered that two of the detainees were certainly not against the war because they had been involved in patriotic campaigns in the region.

It is not only drinking buddies and casual acquaintances who quarrel and fight over the war. Mediazona and New Tab turned up no less than seven court rulings in cases where the defendants and the victims were members of the same family. Vladimir Tofel from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky killed his nephew during an argument about the war. Yuri Makarkin stabbed his son, while Anna Cheremnova, a resident of the Altai Territory, stabbed her husband.

The experts asked for comment by Mediazona and New Tab argue that these are signs of a deep split within society, and the policy of the authorities does not help society to overcome this fissure. On the contrary, the hysterical rhetoric of propaganda only heightens the degree of intolerance, and people are increasingly willing to maim and kill each other.

Source: WTF (Mediazona) newsletter, 10 January 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

Foreign Agents

Lyudmila Savitskaya • Facebook • December 28, 2021

A year ago, the Russian authorities labeled me a foreign agent. THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) WAS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA OUTLET PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT. During these 365 days, one of my bank cards was blocked on suspicion of money laundering, I was fined over ten thousand rubles for the Journalist-Foreign Agent LLC that I created by order of the Justice Ministry, and I was deprived of the opportunity to work on certain projects. Antidepressants appeared in my medicine cabinet, and a psychiatrist became one of my friends.

My husband Dmitry Permyakov was turned into a family member of an enemy of the people: as a person affiliated with a “foreign agent” he was summoned for questioning by Center “E” and threatened with torture in prison. And another person close to the police called to solicitously warn us that our home had been bugged. You can read this year’s other sad particulars in my column for Sever.Realii – “Luda, the floor is burning under your feet!” (See the link in the first comment.)

But here you can admire my super agent photo shoot, which was cold but quite a lot of fun. No time to die, happy new year!

Russia Labels Pussy Riot Activists, Satirist ‘Foreign Agents’ • Moscow Times • December 30, 2021

Russia has added members of the Pussy Riot art activist collective, a prominent satirist and an independent journalist its registry of “foreign agents” Thursday.

The designations close a year in which Russia labeled nearly every major independent domestic news outlet, as well as dozens of individual journalists and activists, a “foreign agent.”

Founding Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and fellow member Nika Nikulshina have been added to the Justice Ministry’s “foreign agents” registry.

Tolokonnikova, 32, was among the Pussy Riot members who were sentenced to prison for their 2012 protest performance in central Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral that criticized the Russian Orthodox Church’s close ties with President Vladimir Putin.

Anti-Kremlin satirist Viktor Shenderovich; Taisiya Bekbulatova, chief editor of the independent Holod news website; and art collector and former Kremlin advisor Marat Gelman have also been added to the list.

“These people systematically distribute materials to an indefinite circle of persons, while receiving foreign funds,” the Justice Ministry’s statement said.

The ministry’s registry now includes more than 100 entities and individuals, most of which were added in 2021.

Rights advocates denounce the country’s “foreign agents” law, saying it seeks to silence groups and individuals that dissent from state narratives by branding them with a label that carries dark connotations from the Soviet era.

Labeled individuals and entities must submit regular financial reports and detailed lists of income and spending, as well as prominently display a wordy disclaimer on all articles, social media posts and other publications — or else face criminal charges.

But officials defend the law, pointing to what they say are harsher equivalent laws in Western countries.

On Monday, prominent BBC Russian investigative journalist ​Andrei Zakharov said he left the country two months after being labeled a “foreign agent,” saying he faced “unprecedented surveillance” following his designation.

And Russian courts this week ruled to liquidate the two main structures of Memorial, Russia’s leading human rights group and a key pillar of its civil society, citing repeated violations of the “foreign agent” law.

Alexander Morozov • Facebook • December 30, 2021

After seeing today’s list of “foreign agents,” I thought: is any more proof required that this status is exclusively political, that its legal aspect does not matter at all? These are not foreign agents in the sense of “lobbyists of a foreign state.” They are “agents of the West” (in the broad sense of “the hostile West”). In this respect, their status directly depends on the Kremlin’s conflict with the outside world. The next stage of escalation (which, in my opinion, is inevitable) will automatically mean that, regardless of their legal status as “foreign agents,” the people on the list will be criminally prosecuted. After all, the list is “good to go”: it exists and therefore should be put to work. So the list is no joke at all. Anyone who does not leave the country before the Kremlin’s conflict with the West accidentally escalates will end up behind bars. Therefore, I won’t congratulate people dear to me on having this label conferred on them. It’s a very dangerous and grim business.

Pussy Riot • Facebook • December 30, 2021

THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) CREATED AND DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT

two of Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Nika Nikulshina, were added to the government list of “foreign agents” & required to start every tweet w this disclaimer.

OFFICIAL REACTION:

1. lol

2. we will not label my posts, the government can label their asses if they’d like.

3. we will appeal in court.

4. Russia will be free.

Matvey Ganapolsky • Facebook • December 30, 2021

I want to say what will happen with the Russian media in 2022.

1. Domestic opposition media outlets will be destroyed and gutted. TV Rain and Echo of Moscow will have huge problems, including closure or reformatting, because they broadcast oppositional viewpoints. Neither [Alexei] Venediktov nor [Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry] Muratov will be able to save them.

2. Under various, poorly concealed pretexts, the local offices of Radio Svoboda [Radio Liberty] and the BBC will be closed. Radio Svoboda’s internet broadcasts and podcasts will be blocked, as well as the websites of these companies. VPNs will also be blocked.

3. The West will find itself in a paradoxical situation in which it will be necessary to resume short-wave broadcasting. Russia will respond by jamming them. Young people will run to their grandparents to retrieve old radios.

4. The media situation will be at the level of the late USSR. It will change only with Putin’s departure or death.

Items 1, 3, and 5 translated by the Russian Reader

“The People’s Crime”: Drug Convictions Are Filling Russia’s Prisons with Nonviolent Offenders

lebedev-dimaDima has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for a minor drugs offense. Photo by Mikhail Lebedev

Mikhail Lebedev
Facebook
February 19, 2020

THIS IS IMPORTANT! LEGAL HELP NEEDED!

It is no secret that I am now shooting a project dealing with the so-called people’s article [Article 228 of the Russian Criminal Code, which makes it a felony to possess over seven grams of a controlled substance; see the articles, below—TRR]. Among other things, I have been photographing people who were convicted under this article and interviewing them. Four months ago, I went to Novgorod to shoot Dima, who was on his own recognizance as his trial was underway. [Last] Friday, Dima, who is twenty-two, was sentenced to eleven years in a maximum-security prison.

Dima was not a dealer. He used synthetic drugs and, as often happens, he used them in the company of others. A couple of times he also used his Hydra account to buy stashes of drugs for friends and sent them photos of the stashes. At some point, the “friends” were detained, the photos Dima sent were found on their telephones, and Dima became a “drug dealer.” At most, he should have been charged with aiding and abetting, but the court refused to change the charges.

This is not a matter of right or wrong, but of whether the punishment fits the crime. Dima is guilty of using drugs and “helping” friends in such an irresponsible manner. Nowadays, however, the emergence of the Darknet and Hydra make it akin to a computer game: you can buy anything with a couple of clicks. I remember what my friends and I were like at the age of twenty-two: any of us could have been sent down like Dima. We lucked out, however, and he did not. Eleven years in prison! People get less time for rape and murder, not to mention assault and battery, domestic violence, and robbery.

We walked around Novgorod for five hours, conversing the entire time. Dima already had a different life: he had stopped using, improved his relationship with his girlfriend, and worked as a loader when possible. (Although Dima is a talented programmer, no one will hire you above the table if you are under investigation.) When he gets out of prison, society will punish him again. Among the people I have met, no one convicted under Article 228 who has served time or been put on probation can get a decent job above the table because corporate security services reject such applicants.

If any of my friends on Facebook know good lawyers in this area or foundations that help people convicted under Article 228 or have practical advice, be sure to write me and I will pass on these contacts to Dima’s girlfriend. His family is now preparing an appeal, and they need support and legal assistance.

message from xtc dealerPetersburg and other Russian cities are now chockablock with stencils and placards advertising illegal drugs like this one, which I photographed in March 2018.

The Stash and Its Master: Why Russians Are Becoming Drugs Couriers
Nataliya Zotova
BBC Russian Service
June 10, 2019

With the spread of the internet and smartphones in Russia, a whole new profession for young people has emerged—stashers (zakladchiki) aka stashmen (kladmeny), people who deliver drugs ordered on the internet to buyers. Although it is a fairly easy way for young people to make money, they could face up to twenty years in prison if they are caught.

Young people employed in the business told the BBC why they went into it, what the job involved, and whether they were afraid of getting caught.

[…]

Twenty-year-old Daniil Zhilenkov did his mandatory military service in the Russian National Guard, and when he was demobbed, he wanted to sign up again as a professional soldier. But he changed his mind when he found out that novice guardsmen made only 16,000 rubles [approx. $250] a month. He then left his hometown of Mariinsk, in Kemerovo Region, to live with his girlfriend, a university student in Krasnoyarsk. Kseniya could not contribute to their joint budget because she had to finish her studies.

Daniil found employment at the train depot (he had graduated from the railway college before going to the army), but he left the job after a month, again due to the low salary. He tried working part-time at a car wash.

“The salary was 27,000 rubles [approx. $420] a month. Our rent was 15,000, and then there were the groceries. We didn’t have enough money to cover everything,” he said.

Kseniya recalled that she bought only the cheapest products at the time.

One day, Daniil and a friend were walking down the street and saw an ad on a wall: a store was hiring couriers. Daniil found out what the store sold when came home and googled the name.

“He took the job without my knowledge. When he started going out in the evenings, I realized something was wrong. We sat down and talked. We had a huge row over it,” Kseniya recounted, explaining that she was afraid for her boyfriend.

Daniil was not afraid, however.

“I didn’t think about how to do things more safely. I couldn’t imagine the police were interested in us. It was quite the opposite, as it turned out: it is only people like us who are arrested,” he said.

Daniil and Kseniya agreed that he would not do the work for long, only until he found a better job.

“He said, ‘I’ll save up and leave,'” she recalled.

So four months passed, but one night Daniil was detained on the street by the police. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for distributing drugs.

He spoke to me on a pay phone from the penal colony in Irkutsk: he had served around two years of his seven-year sentence. Daniil wondered how old I was. I told him I was twenty-age. Daniil would be the same age when he was released.

[…]

Translated by the Russian Reader

fullsizeoutput_1ba8“Stashers wanted.” Petrograd Side, Petersburg, March 2018. Photo by the Russian Reader

A Change in Russia’s Draconian Drug Laws Could Be on the Horizon
The fiasco surrounding the case of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov is bringing the country’s controversial Article 228 into the spotlight.
Pjotr Sauer
Moscow Times
June 14, 2019

Living in a country where so-called gay propaganda is banned, Denis, 19, was happy to finally meet someone he felt a connection with on the dating app Tinder.

A few weeks after they had started chatting, the guy on the other side of the screen invited him over and asked him to bring “some weed” to relax them during their first encounter. But when Denis arrived at the address his date had given him, he was met by two policeman who began to search him.

“It turned out to be a set up, and the guy I was talking to on Tinder was a cop,” Denis told The Moscow Times.

The police presented him with a choice — pay a bribe or face being charged under the notorious Article 228 for drug-related crimes.

“They told me they would charge me with possession of 7 grams of marijuana and open a criminal case against me, even though I had much less on me. It would have been the end of my university career and possibly my future,” he said.

Possession of up to 6 grams of the drug is an administrative offense, while anything over that is a criminal offense. Denis paid the 70,000 ruble ($1,088) bribe.

Russia has the highest number of people per capita imprisoned for drug crimes in Europe. Most of them were convicted under Article 228 of the Russian Criminal Code — nicknamed “narodnaya statya” or “the people’s article” because of the large number of people imprisoned under it. In 2018 alone, around 100,000 people were jailed under the article, and a quarter of all prisoners are in jail on drug-related charges.

According to Maksim Malishev coordinator of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation NGO that aims to change Russia’s drug laws, Denis’s story is far from unique.

“We constantly hear of police either planting drugs on innocent people or increasing the amount of drugs they caught someone with in order to prosecute the person under criminal law,” he said.

Human rights lawyer Arseniy Levinson said that police and other officials fabricate cases for several reasons, including having to reach certain quotas and collecting bribes.

Last week, Russian investigative reporter Ivan Golunov was arrested and charged with drug trafficking under Article 228. The anti-corruption journalist’s detention led to a national outcry among his Russian peers and human rights activists, who said drugs found by police in his backpack and apartment were planted. On Monday, Russia’s Interior Ministry ruled to drop the charges against Golunov, admitting that there was no evidence the drugs belonged to him.

“Not everyone is as famous as Ivan Golunov, and most cases go unnoticed as they aren’t political. We have thousands and thousands of people rotting away in jail because of false charges,” said Vyacheslav Matushin, a colleague of Malishev at the Andrey Rylkov Foundation.

The Golunov case has ignited public debate about Article 228 and how it is being implemented.

“We are feeling the post-Golunov effect, and this could be a turning point in how Russians look at Article 228,” said Ella Paneyakh, a sociologist at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

The problem with current drug legislation is how the system is set up, said Mikhail Golichenko, a human rights lawyer specializing in drug and HIV cases.

He pointed to official state figures showing that over 80 percent of all people charged under Article 228 are convicted for the possession of drugs without the intention of selling them.

“In those cases, police have almost full oversight over the evidence that is presented to the courts and the judges need little else to make their decision.”

Golunov’s high profile case, however, might have triggered a response from the authorities. On Tuesday, the independent television station Dozhd reported that a proposal to cut sentences for drug possession unrelated to attempted sales might be passed by Russia’s State Duma before the end of the spring session.

The first hearing could be on June 20.

“I know they have been working for a while now on softening the legislation, maybe now they think they will have the support of the public to push it through,” Malishev said, adding that “it is only a tiny step in the right direction.”

Several high profile officials have also voiced their support for reform. Alexei Kudrin, the head of the Audit Chamber and a long-standing advisor of Russian President Vladimir Putin said while he “welcomed” the release of Golunov, “many others are still in jail” and called for a reform of Article 228.

Lawyers and human rights activists The Moscow Times spoke to, however, remain skeptical that new legislation will bring genuine change.

“The government might soften the laws a bit, but unless there is a fundamental shift in the way police deal with suspects, this will keep on happening,” Levinson said.

It’s also unclear if drug reform has popular support

Sociological polls indicate little public support for any kind of drug decriminalization in Russia. Levada, the country’s sole independent pollster, in 2014 showed that only 14 percent of the population would like to see soft drugs legalized.

VTsIOM, the state polling agency, showed similar numbers in 2018. But attitudes toward punishment for drug-related offenses were much more lenient among under 24s.

“There is a definite generational shift in attitudes towards drug use, young people are seeing the absurdity of the current legislation and how it is being implemented,” said Malishev, adding that his organization received a “large amount of interest and calls” following Golunov’s arrest.

Other initiatives have also sprung up to bring attention to the issues surrounding current drug legislation, including a range of t-shirts with the slogan “228” from Moscow-based fashion brand Kultrab.

“They have been a massive success, we completely sold out and had to order a new batch, people have been proud to wear them on the streets and are posting about them on social media, so the stigma seems to be going away,” said Kultrab’s founder Yegor Yeremeev.

“We have the momentum with us, suddenly everyone is talking about 228. People have realized that they too could be Golunov,” he added.

This sentiment was echoed by the editors of Russia’s three most influential newspapers — Vedomosti, Kommersant and RBC — who on Monday made history by printing identical front pages with the headline “I/We are Ivan Golunov” in support of the journalist.

RBC’s editor-in-chief, Igor Trosnikov, told The Moscow Times that Golunov being charged under Article 228 played a big role in the decision.

For Denis, change can’t come soon enough, as he said he and his friends often feel “hunted by police” in Moscow under the current laws.

“This has to end, I am sick of being scared.”

Lemmy Kilmister vs. Vladimir Putin

Mother of Man Accused in Penza Case Files Complaint Against Lawyer Mikhail Grigoryan, Who Concealed Son’s Torture from Her
Mediazona
May 14, 2018

Yelena Bogatova, mother of antifascist Ilya Shakursky, one of the young men accused in the so-called Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case (aka The Network case) has filed a complaint against attorney Mikhail Grigoryan with the Moscow Bar Association and the Penza Bar Association. Mediazona has a copy of the complaint in its possession. In the complaint, Ms. Bogatova reports that, in October 2017, she signed an agreement with Mr. Grigoryan. According to the agreement, he agreed to defend her son, for which she paid him ₽100,000 [approx. €1,360]. According to Ms. Bogatova, over the six months during which the investigation of the Penza case was underway, Mr. Grigoryan “grossly violated the basic principles of attorney ethics.”

Thus, Mr. Grigoryan did not convey to Ms. Bogatova her son’s account of how security services officers tortured him with electrical shocks. Mr. Grigoryan also convinced Mr. Shakursky he must confess his involvement in a “terrorist community,” thus depriving him of professional services.

In addition, without obtaining Ms. Bogatova and her son’s consent, Mr. Grigorayn “used the information confided to him and interpreted it in an unethical manner,” acted against Mr. Shakursky’s will, and “made public statements that his client’s guilt had been proven, despite his denial of guilt.”

Mikhail Grigoryan, sporting a leather jacket and a Motorhead t-shirt against the backdrop of a Vladimir Putin calendar. Photo courtesy of Mr. Grigoryan’s VK page and Mediazona

Mr. Grigoryan, for example, gave an interview to the BBC’s Russian Service in which he discussed the “serious set of evidence” the case investigators had assembled against the accused young antifascists.

“According to Grigoryan, during the investigation, FSB officers showed him a large ‘tome,’ a methodology that had, allegedly, been confiscated from one of the accused, describing the rules for recruiting new group members,” wrote BBC reporters Olga Prosvirova and Oksana Chizh in the article.

“Believe me, it was not written by twentysomething young men. I think it was drafted somewhere in the depths of the secret services. Not our secret services, of course. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination,” they quoted Mr. Grigoryan as saying.

Mr. Grigoryan also was interviewed by Russian TV channel NTV, excerpts of which were used in their documentary film on the Penza case. In the interview, Mr. Grigoryan claims his client “was well aware” he was involved in a terrorist community.

“Why were they learning to shoot firearms? Here there seems to be awareness of what they were doing. Can we say they were playing cops and robbers? I don’t think these are little kids. They are not Young Pioneers. They went out to practice. Why were they learning to shoot firearms?” Mr. Grigoryan told NTV reporters.

As Ms. Bogatova wrote in her complaint, she expected Mr. Grigoryan to defend her son, not act as his accuser. She asked the bar associations to take disciplinary measures against Mr. Grigoryan.

The FSB launched an investigation into the “The Network terrorist community” in October 2017. Most of the young men who have been accused and arrested in the case are antifascists and anarchists. According to the FSB, the members of the alleged community were planning terrorist attacks during the March 2018 presidential election and this summer’s FIFA World Cup in order to “sway the masses and further destabilize the political situation” in Russia, ultimately inciting an armed uprising.

Yegor Zorin, Ilya Shakursky, Vasily Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, and Andrei Chernov were detained last autumn in Penza and remanded in custody. Arman Sagynbayev was apprehended in Petersburg and transferred to the remand prison in Penza.

Viktor Filinkov and Igor Shishkin were apprehended and remanded in custody in the same case this past January in Petersburg. In April, a third Petersburger, Yuli Boyarshinov, was charged in the case.

Pchelintsev, Shakursky, and Filinkov have testified FSB officers tortured them, demanding they confess to the charges against them.

Translated by the Russian Reader

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What you can 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) and make sure to specify that 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 drawn attention to the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find downloadable, printable posters and flyers. You can also read more about the case there.
  • If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merch, 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 will find the addresses of the prisoners here.
  • Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed out 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 gets, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and more torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be likely 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. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are ultimately ajudicated, the Russian government will be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

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If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other 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 repost the recent articles the Russian Reader has translated and published on these subjects.

Daria Serenko’s Quiet Picket

Picketing the Everyday
Marina Simakova
OpenLeft.ru
May 7, 2016

Quiet Picket, a recent initiative by Daria Serenko, teeters on the verge of artistic intervention and protest action. Every day, Serenko boards public transport (often, the subway) bearing a new placard inscribed with an extensive message. Its purpose is to invite people to engage in a discussion. Serenko thus explores the space of communication itself: the distance between placard and recipient, and how potential interlocutors navigate the distance. So far she has produced fifty-four placards, gone through six markers, and directly communicated with ninety-three people. Marina Simakova spoke with Serenko about the background of the action and its effects.

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Daria Serenko: “I want to carry it myself.”

Tell us how and under what circumstances the idea for the action occurred to you. What was the occasion?

The action grows out of several occasions. On the one hand, the arrest of Ildar Dadin; on the other, the story with the itinerant exhibition {NE MIR}, when we artists were detained by police while carrying our artworks down the street. I had been contemplating a solo picket for quite a long time. I had a dream of doing an ordinary picket, holding a placard at chest level that would resemble the headings in children’s encyclopedias: “And did you know that…” But ultimately a kind of reformatting of the very principle happened in my head. My understanding of it changed.

And what defined its format?

I was riding the subway after the closing of a {NE MIR} exhibition. I had grabbed a small poster by the Lights of Eirene movement. It featured the famous photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their Bed-In for Peace, and next to it, a current photograph in which similar looking people were lying in approximately the same poses. I was carrying the poster unfolded so it would not be crumpled, and I noticed that everyone in the subway car was looking at it. It dawned on me then and there this was the perfect form of communication. It was completely unobtrusive.

Why did you decide to do it alone, without friends? Did you ask anyone else to join you?

I said from the get-go that the format was open. Two young women joined me, but each has changed the format to suit her. One of them, Sasha, joined about ten days ago. She has attached a placard to her backpack (it comes out more static), and she has been traveling with the same placard for a week. On the other hand, she usually prints it out, and it contains references. The second young woman, Valeria, has also been doing a quiet picket on public transport. She wrote me to ask my permission, and of course I agreed. I have asked the young women to share photos of their placards and stories about what happened as they are able. In no way do I want my action to smack of a manifestation where “I, the performance artist, march forth and educate people.” That is not how it is. Although I do conceive of it as an educational project.

So your action could go viral?

It is difficult to talk about a virus when there are only three young women. But this format really is networked, simple, and palatable. It also functions without me.

How has it been documented?

On VKontakte and Facebook, and a bit on Instagram.  I have a small public page on Vkontakte, and I post a written report on my personal page on Facebook every afternoon or evening, when I have a free minute. I try and describe the situations, the conversations, and the behavior, both my own and that of the people with whom I interact. I also post photographs of the placards.

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“#quietpicket is when you feel discouraged and your arms fall.” In Russian, the expression “[one’s] arms fall” means to “feel discouraged.”

And is someone watching and photographing you?

Yes, constantly. Stealthily, very politely. If people photograph at close range, they always ask my  permission. Actually, I have got used to thinking of my action as a tape. Today, something like two hundred people wrote me asking what the action was all about. They had not been following it, and I already find it hard to conceive it any other way and explain it all in a jiffy, because some things were improvised and then they caught on. The format of the action has been changing.

How has it changed?

Initially, I had planned to make a placard early in the morning or the night before, ride around with it for a day, and make a new one the next day. I could not imagine subsequent interventions into the placard. But then I sensed the need to alter it depending on the reactions, to write and draw something extra, to explain something on the back. First, the placards were one-sided, then they became two-sided, and then I started doing several narratives within a placard.

After hearing why I was doing this, one of my accidental interlocutors said, “Oh, I get it. You are making a social alphabet.”

Yes, you could say that as well, and so the alphabet format emerged in my action. I want to put together an entire alphabet. Yesterday, I traveled with Г, for gomoseksual’nost’ [homosexuality], and today it was Ш, for shovinizm [chauvinism].

There is also a storyline involving poems I write on the placards. They can be connected with the topic of the placard, as stated on the other side, or they might not be connected. For example, I have been riding around with texts by the poets of the Lianozovo School, the poems of Vsevolod Nekrasov and Igor Holin, and I have been telling people about poetry. And when people ask me whether I think they are poems, I say that of course they are.

Sometimes, the text on a placard is arranged like a dialogue. There is an enquirer of sorts and a respondent.  There was a photo stand-in placard with holes for the eyes and mouth on which I wrote about the social status of women. The allegory in this case was simple: almost any face could be placed on the placard. But, actually, each placard turns out different from the others.

The last few days I have been stitching the sheets of paper together with thread, because I have run out of tape. (I use A3 sheets, which I combine into one big sheet.) It is an excellent means of representing a placard, because while I am stitching it together, I can turn it over and still remain focused on some task.

Sometimes, I also sew a new placard to an old one. This is a palimpsest placard, and the one is visible through the other. The placards thus form strange seams and montages.

I now always have a pile of posters in my bag.  If I see a person is reacting to the placard I am holding, and realize that I want to say something to them, I take another placard from my bag and sew it to the first. When I was riding around with the placard “Our government is fabricating [in Russian, “stitching up”] yet another case against yet another political prisoner,” I sewed it as well I could, in several rows, with rough stitches. By the way, I have been stitching the alphabet placards into a single notebook so later you can flip through it.

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Daria Serenko, Photo Stand-in Placard on Social Status of Women (Quiet Picket), 2016

How do you think up the texts for the placards? Do you take advantage of items in the news?

Everything is unstable when it comes to this, too. For May Day I made a topical placard, and after Pavlensky’s action [when the artist summoned sex workers to his court hearing as witnesses—OpenLeft] I made a placard about prostitution. But there are issues I simply have to cover, so I conceive of Quiet Picket as an educational project, albeit semi-ironically and semi-seriously.  Although it happens that I see my action as a kind of monstration. I ride in the subway, look at people, and think I would like to cheer them up.

Besides the fact that the project is educational, how do you define it for yourself? As a series of political art performances or as a civic initiative?

I see it as a continuation of my own work as a poet. In the poetry I have been doing, I spent a long time trying to achieve some kind of interaction: I took ready-mades and inserted them into poems. I think this know-how has influenced Quiet Picket. I am not saying that Picket is a purely poetic endeavor, but thanks to poetry the placard itself has greater opportunities for communicating. And the aspect I cannot keep track of in poetry, the aspect of reading [meaning the reader and her interaction with the poetic text—OpenLeft] is a process I can observe in this case. I see the person’s eyes running over the text, and at the same time she can address me, while I observe how her interpretative mechanisms function, and I can influence them. Quiet Picket takes place in this gap, in the distance between the person and the placard.

Have you thought about urban studies? After all, your action is nothing less than an intervention in one of the most important urban infrastructural spaces, an intervention that would let you get a feel for certain problems, study the behavior of passengers, do work on communications, and so on.

I might prove insufficiently competent as a researcher in this field. I have been trying to document everything I do, and perhaps the outcome will be an article or essay I write. I have not drawn any conclusions for the time being. My research involves collecting information and gaining the know-how of conversing with people on pointed topics that many of them find painful.

There is a rather glaring contradiction in your action. On the one hand, it lays claim to a certain intimacy. It summons a man in the crowd to have a private conversation; it invites him to a politicized discussion. On the other hand, it is very public and open to multiple counter-statements. Could you comment on this?

I don’t see a contradiction here. The fact is that the star of my action is the person who has brought herself to engage in reciprocal communication. She is the master of the situation, not me. She defines her own borders. She can approach me and whisper something in my ear, or she can holler at me from the other end of the subway car, aware that everyone will hear her and thus let other people get involved. It has also happened that a person has asked me to exit the car and have a chat. In that case, I obediently go with him and talk.

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Daria Serenko in the midst of Quiet Picket on the Moscow subway

If we shift the focus from the action itself to its subject, meaning you, we can detect yet another problem. At first glance, you appear as a naïve angel in this action. Eyes downcast, silently but persistently, you broadcast your appeal to people. Prepared for any reaction, you throw yourself at the mercy of angry, tired subway passengers. There is a certain victimhood about all this, almost evoking associations with the holy apostles. At the same time, we can look at you in a different way, as an artist working in the aftermath of Situationism and rationally exploiting the temporal distance. So you are protected from the man in the crowd by theory and your own stance, which have found their own places on your placards, while your potential interlocutor, the so-called man in the street, simply has nothing to oppose to you. You thus possess a certain power from the outset.

First, the image of me as meek silent angel is not true. It has been conjured from a photograph of me that has become quite popular. Usually, I don’t look that way. Second, yes, I have a background in culture, a knowledge of manipulative devices, and a set of readymade arguments. There is no getting away from it, but in the process of communicating I still feel unarmed and naked. The things people say, their experience, and the situations they reference have often stumped me. It has happened that I have nothing ready to say to them.

You assumed this experience would change you, pose new questions, and, perhaps, even force you to undergo a kind of metanoia.  Or am I wrong?

I haven’t had the time to keep track of what has been happening to me. But as a woman and feminist, I do think about my own feminine subjectivity (and objectivity). The placard is an amazing agent. When I use the placard to broadcast a feminist agenda, which I do quite often, I am simultaneously the subject and author of the placard and its object.  When I have to dialogue with someone on the topic, I have to act as a subject. So I balance between these points like a pendulum, and this affects me. Of course, I know about the experiments of artists whose bodies, including social bodies, have become sacrificial bodies. But I am faced primarily by the task of a cultural worker. I really wanted and still want to tell people about certain facts. It pains me these facts are hushed up, many people don’t have access to them, etc.

And why should people believe what you tell them? The legitimacy of your claim to know the facts is supported by what? Are you appealing to the status of cultural worker?

Since my format is encyclopedic, I appeal to sources. You will have noticed the references on my placards. People and I often google something: they verify the information on the Internet. I realize that the informational field is infinite, and for various reasons people often deal with only a fragment of this field. I offer them an alternative.

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Daria Serenko, “This is how our government has been fabricating yet another case against yet another political prisoner” (Quiet Picket, 2016)

The action has been running for five weeks, and you certainly have managed to collect the most incredible textured. Could you tell us about the most memorable, unexpected or personally important incidents during the picket? I will phrase my question even more openly. Tell us about whatever you would like.

For example, an elderly woman read my placard about political prisoners and thanked me. We were sitting opposite each other in the subway, and she told me about her life. She was a medical worker who helped athletes recover after injuries. On the back of my poster was an old poster, the May Day poster, on which the phrase “Thank you for your hard work” had been written.  She then asked me to exit the subway with her and offered to reward me for my work by having a look at my back and spine.

How long are you planning to continue the action?

For a year. I have a palpable dream that one day I will hit on the right phrasing, the right interactive possibility, and a person will want to make a placard in response right in front of me—as a creative act, as a statement, as an expression of contempt for me or, on the contrary, out of a desire to express agreement or disagreement.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photos courtesy of OpenLeft.

Zarina Yunusova: “I Will Never Forgive What They Did to Me”

Zarina Yunusova: “I Will Never Forgive What They Did to Me”
Anora Sarkorova
BBC Russian Service
November 27, 2015

Зарина Юнусова
Zarina Yunusova: “I still remember holding him in my arms, feeling the warmth of his body, and seeing him smiling at me.”

Zarina Yunusova, the mother of the five-month-old baby who died in Petersburg after he was forcibly removed from his parents by Russian police officers, has called on the Russian authorities and concerned Russian citizens to conduct an objective investigation into the causes of her child’s death and reconsider previous decisions in the case.

In addition, the young woman has appealed to the Tajik authorities, who, according to her, should be bolder in defending the interests of Tajikistani citizens.

After returning home and burying her son, Yunusova has gone back to her parents’ home in the remote mountain village of Kandak, in Obi-Garm, in the east of Tajikistan.

Relatives and friends of the young woman that it will thus be easier to survive the loss of the child and rid herself of the painful memories of what she has experienced over the last month and a half.

“I constantly rewind that accursed day in my mind. I remember how the authorities came to our place at six in the morning, how they took the child from me. I did not want to give him up. I fought back, I screamed, I cried, I begged,  and I dragged me on the floor, but they removed the child anyway. I still remember holding him in my warms, feeling the warmth of his body, and seeing him smile at me. I will never forget it and never forgive those who did this to me,” says Yunusova.

Jail Cell, Fine, Deportation
When I met Yunusova at the gate of her house, I noticed that the quite emaciated young woman was limping a little. Her relatives explained that two of her toes were injured at the Petersburg police station where she and the child were taken.

“It happened when they were taking the child. While she was fighting for little Umarali, Zarina injured two toes. For some reason, the Russian Interior Ministry made public only video footage showing a female officer cradling the child, not the part where the child was removed. They should show the whole world how they did it,” says Nazar Boboyerov, a relative of Yunusova’s.

Five-month-old Umarali Nazarov died under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of October 14 after he was removed from his mother, 21-year-old Zarina Yunusova, detained for immigration violations, at a police station in Petersburg’s Admiralty District.

The woman was placed in a temporary holding cell. The same day, the court fined Yunusova 5,000 rubles and ruled that the Tajik migrant should be expelled from Russia.

According to Yunusova’s relatives, she tried to find her son, but the police did not give her the address of the medical center where the baby had been taken.

A day later, the parents were informed of Umarali Nazarov’s death.

Cause of Death

Могила Умарали Назарова
Umarali Nazarov was buried November 15 in the village of Boboi Vali in the Faizobod District.

According to the Petersburg Bureau of Forensic Medicine (BSME), the cause of five-month-old Umarali’s death was a generalized cytomegalovirus infection.

The child’s relatives categorically disagree with the official finding. The parents have numerous medical documents from the clinic where the infant was periodically examined. They suggest that the boy was perfectly healthy.

Umarali was Rustam Nazarov and Zarina Yunusov’s firstborn child. The young people had not met before their wedding. The bride was found on the advice of relatives.

As is typical in many Tajik families, a few months after the wedding festivities, Nazarov went to Russia to work, and later he was joined by his wife.

“We really wanted children. I joined my husband, got pregnant in Russia, and had the child in Saint Petersburg. I took care of the baby, associated only with members of our family, and almost never left the house. I went to the medical clinic where the baby had his examinations only with my husband. I know nothing about immigration laws, rules, and violations. My husband handled all these problems,” recalls Yunusova.

“There Is No Hate, Only Resentment”
Zarina Yunusova grew up in a large family.  She has nine brothers and a sister. She was unable to finish school. The school is located five kilometers from their house. Children have to spend nearly three hours getting to school on mountain slopes, so many children in the village do not attend school.

The majority of girls who do not attend school live in remote rural regions. While the numbers of girls and boys are approximately even in the lower grades, there are many fewer girls in the upper classes, say local teachers. Often parents decide that after the obligatory ninth grade a daughter should quit school and prepare for an early marriage.

At the same time, illiterate brides are valued in rural areas. They are meek, humble, and completely financially dependent on the husband’s family.

Zarina Yunusov went to Russia to be with her husband without fear. Until she traveled to Russia, she knew very little [about the country], but she could not have guessed that anything bad would happen to her.

“After what happened, I will never go to Russia again. How can I forget what they did to me, how treated me? There is no hatred, but the resentment will last a lifetime,” says Yunusova.

The Authorities Did Not Arrive
The body of five-month-old Umarali Nazarov was flown to Dushanbe on November 15. He was buried the same day in the village of Boboi Vali in the Faizobod District, in the east of the country, where the baby’s father comes from. Only several foreign and independent local journalists were on hand to meet the family.

The baby’s relatives waited several hours for officials from the Tajik Ministry of Health, Interior Ministry, and General Prosecutor’s Office, but none of them arrived to meet the Nazarov family, despite promises from the Tajik Consulate in Saint Petersburg that they would be met at the airport and a forensic medical examination would be performed.

Officials from Dushanbe visited Zarina Yunusova several days after her arrival.

At the request of the Tajik Interior Ministry, Yunusova gave blood for a blood test, whose outcome will be known within a week.

In addition, the Tajik police took a statement from Yunusova in which the young woman asks for a criminal investigation into the death of Umarali Nazarov and that the Russian police officers and doctors at the Tsimbalin Children’s Hospital responsible, in her opinion, for his death be brought to justice.

In her suit, Yunusova also asks for 10 million rubles [approx. 141,00 euros] in financial compensation from the Russian side.

“I want to know the cause of my child’s death. The Tajik Interior Ministry explained to me that I had to give blood so they could put an end to all the rumors and prove that I am healthy and that the baby was healthy. When we asked them why the relevant agencies did not show up the day we flew in and conduct an independent examination,  we were told they had not known about the family’s arrival in Tajikistan,” says Yunusova.

Hush Up the Case, Hide the Perpetrators

Каримджон Еров
Karimjon Yerov says that Dushanbe is attempting to hush up the Umarali Nazarov case.

The major case squad in the investigative department of the Tajik Interior Ministry declined to comment on the particulars of the case to the BBC Russian Service while the investigation was still underway.

According to Karimjon Yerov, president of the Russian non-profit partnership ETMOS (Ethnic Tajiks for Responsible Migration by Compatriots), the results of a forensic examination of Umarali’s death would change nothing.

“Russia has never recognized medical records from Tajikistan. All the certificates that Tajik citizens get at home have not been recognized by the Russian side, despite an agreement to that effect. But in this case Russia will recognize an outcome that the parties could have agreed in advance, an outcome that blames the family and helps save face in the name of the so-called strategic partnership,” argues Yerov.

According to Yerov, Dushanbe is also not interested in getting to the bottom of the case and is now doing everything it can to hush the case up.

“The Tajik Consulate in Petersburg repeatedly stated its intention to conduct an independent forensic medical examination. Later, however, people from the Tajik Embassy claimed that such promises had never been made to the Nazarov family. A few days ago, a man identifying himself as an employee of the Tajik Interior Ministry and declared that he had arrived to detain and send home the Tajik nationals who had organized the protest rally outside the Tajik Consulate in Petersburg. I am not certain that Tajik nationals need a Tajik-Russian partnership based on humiliation, disempowerment and the deaths of Tajik nationals,” says the president of ETMOS.

Karimjon Yerov speaking at a November 14, 2015, protest rally at the Field of Mars in Petersburg, demanding an objective investigation of Umarali Nazarov’s death (in Russian). Around a hundred people attended the rally.

The Prosecutor General’s Office told the BBC that the supervisory authority had not opened a criminal case in the death of the Tajik baby and was not currently involved in any investigation of the matter.

“In terms of government agencies, the Tajik side is quite dependent on the Russian side, so it is hardly worth expecting a conflict between them, even over the mother of the deceased child. As for punishing the guilty in Russia, the course of the investigation clearly displays an unwillingness to do this. The mother’s deportation, for example, speaks volumes. It may well turn out that departmental interests will prevail over the rule of law and basic human values. If we don’t manage to insist on a proper investigation of the Umarali Nazarov case now, then in the future we might see numerous such cases throughout Russia,” stresses political scientist Anton Yevstratov.

__________

My previous posts on Umarali Nazarov’s death:

__________

An Example of Senseless Brutality 
Why the Story of the Death of 5-Month-Old Umarali Nazarov Becomes No Less Important over Time 
Maria Eismont
Vedomosti
November 26, 2015

I want to tell you how Zarina Yunusova is doing. Yunusov is the mother of the five-month-old boy Umarali Nazarov, who in mid-October suddenly died in a Petersburg hospital after he was taken from his mother at a police station. Yunusova still hardly eats or sleeps, and she cries constantly. Journalists from the Tajik news website Asia-Plus, who visited her at her parents’ home, where she has lived since she was expelled from Russia, describe her as terribly emaciated and depressed. Yunusova has still not met with a psychologist. The trip to the village is long and hard, and she is not permitted to go anywhere alone without her husband. Her husband, meanwhile, has stayed in Petersburg, where he has been trying to gain recognition as an injured party in the case of his son’s death. The independent forensic examination of the body in Tajikistan they were promised was never performed, but Yunusova herself was recently summoned to the Tajik Interior Ministry, where they took a sample of her blood without really explaining why.

Yes, and the current news agenda is completely different. The Russian public has been discussing the Russian bomber downed by the Turkish air force on the Turkish-Syrian border and the response of the Russian side. Before that, there was news of the deaths of Russian civilian pilots at the hands of terrorists in Mali, and a mere three days before the bloodbath in Bamako, the Russian authorities had officially recognized the Kogalymavia plane crash in the Sinai as a terrorist attack. Convoys of angry truckers have been lining the roadsides and threatening to move on Moscow. Crimea has been plunged into darkness due to the explosion of a power line in Ukraine, and the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court upheld the tellingly cruel sentence (twenty years in prison) against Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, accused of terrorism.

So why I am talking today about Yunusova when Umarali Nazarov died a month and a half ago, was buried ten days ago, and the decision to expel his mother was made long ago and has been carried out? Because however long ago it happened, whatever dramatic and frightening events have filled our lives since then, the Tajik baby’s death has shocked a huge part of active society. Nearly 150,000 people have signed a petition demanding a thorough investigation of Umarali’s death, and dozens of people still ask me how they can help the family and what can be done so that something like this never happens again.

Because Umarali’s story is special. It is an example of pure, completely senseless inhumanity manifested publicly by the system towards the most defenseless people in the total absence of extreme necessity and all political expediency. At each stage of this story—from the Federal Migration Service officers who raided the Nazarov apartment and decided not wait until Umarali’s grandmother brought them the family document’s and did not let Yunusova put a cap on the baby, to Judge Elena Shirokova, who made the final decision to deport the dead baby’s mother—one person with a heart might have entered the picture and everything would have been different. But no such person was to be found.

Neither Yunusova nor her husband, with whom no one has been able to get in touch for several days, can fight for their rights in this case. So it is we who have to demand an objective investigation and punishment for the guilty.

Translated by the Russian Reader