The Crime of Speaking Up in Russia: Solidarity with Dadin and Polyudova

Vadim F. Lurie
Facebook
March 23, 2016

The people’s assembly [to publicize an appeals hearing in the case of Ildar Dadin, sentenced in December 2015 to three years in prison for the heretofore unknown offense of “repeat unauthorized protesting”] did not come off. [Nor did Dadin’s appeals hearing in Moscow City Court: it was postponed to a later date.] There were fewer people in attendance than the day before yesterday, the day Nadiya Savchenko was sentenced. But the picketers decided to spread out along the Nevsky, and members of the National Liberation Movement (NOD) wandered around searching for them, trying to pester and troll them.

The most successful at this was a bearded specimen, who yelled, “Look, a real live national traitor! A Maidanite, a Banderite, funded by the State Department!

The passerbys, who usually do not pay much attention to people standing holding placards, mostly regarded them sympathetically thanks to this spiel.

lurie-skhod-1 — “What a viper sentenced Dadin! Free Ildar Dadin!” Local police detain veteran democratic activist Igor “Stepanych” Andreyev. Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-2 — Petersburg police surround a picketer, demanding he produce his documents. Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-3 — A member of the so-called National Liberation Movement (NODS) scans the Nevsky for “national traitors.” Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-4 — “Free [Ildar Dadin! No to Article 212.1!” A picketer stands in front of Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral. Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-5 — “Free Ildar Dadin!” Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-7 — “Down with Article 212.1!* Free Ildar Dadin! Congratulations, Nastya and Ildar!” Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

lurie-skhod-8 — “Free Darya Polyudova,** sentenced to two years in a work-release prison as an extremist for a repost on Vkontakte.” Image of Polyudova with placard: “Ukraine, we are with you.” Petrograd, March 23, 2016. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Vadim F. Lurie for his kind permission to republish his photos here.

*Despite the obstacles, Russia’s opposition continued to organize protests. So last summer in 2014, the Kremlin effectively criminalized all peaceful protests and assemblies. Article 212.1, which went into effect in January 2015, amends the previous law in a considerably more punitive manner, carrying up to 5-year criminal prison terms for repeated protests. This law has a “3 strikes” feature, stating that anyone who has been convicted 3 times for the administrative offense of ‘violating the regulations governing public rallies,’ within a six month period is subject to criminal liability. With these laws and their particular application against political critics, the Putin regime is sending a powerful message heard throughout Russia of a repressive new reality unseen in decades: If you dare to speak out against government policies or leadership, the authorities will ruthlessly treat you as a common criminal and send you away for years in penal colonies. [] A young protester named Ildar Dadin became the first person to be convicted under Article 212.1 for having protested 3 times within a 6-month span. Ildar Dadin engaged in a completely benign peaceful protest, mostly standing alone holding a sign expressing his opinions, specifically about releasing political prisoners, the need to change power in the Kremlin, and to end the war in Ukraine. Until his trial in December, Dadin had been confined to house arrest. But on December 7, Dadin was sentenced to 3 years of actual prison time in a penal colony for simply exercising his constitutional right to express his opinion. Yes, Russia’s Constitution under Articles 29, 30 and 31 guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. But the new laws make those guarantees not worth the paper they’re written on. (Paula Chertok, “New Normal in Russia: Putin Critics Punished with Harsh Prison Terms,” Euromaidan Press, January 6, 2015)

**Dispatches: The Crime of Speaking Up in Russia
Tanya Lokshina, Russian Program Director
Human Rights Watch
December 22, 2015

A left-wing political activist has been convicted of inciting separatism and extremist activities, the latest in a series of criminal prosecutions in Russia against people who dare speak their minds online.

Unless the December 21 ruling by a court in Krasnodar in southern Russia is quashed on appeal, the accused, Darya Polyudova, 26, will spend the next two years behind bars. The charges against her derived from three posts she published on her page in VKontakte (VK), Russia’s most popular social network.

All three posts had to do with Ukraine. The one that triggered the incitement to separatism charge – in Russian law, making “public, online calls aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” – was not even written by her. It was a flippant comment by another user, which Polyudova shared on her page, about supposed demands by local ethnic Ukrainians of the Krasnodar region to be incorporated into Ukraine.

The second post, deemed by authorities as “public calls to extremist activities,” was a photo of Polyudova with a poster that said, “No war in Ukraine but a revolution in Russia!” The slogan did not include any advocacy of violence.

The third one was a commentary about how the situation in Russia was intolerable and Russians needed to follow the example of Ukraine’s Maidan activists, take to the streets, and bring down the government. These are strong words, but didn’t include any specific action plan.

Polyudova’s VK page has all of 38 followers, and most of her posts draw very few comments. Her words can’t be taken as inciting violence, and they certainly didn’t pose a “danger to the public,” as Russian law requires for criminal prosecution.

Polyudova’s prosecution is one in a growing number of cases where Russians are being punished for speaking their mind. This autumn, a court in Tatarstan sentenced an activistto three years in prison on very similar charges. Since the return of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin in 2012, the Russian government has instituted an unprecedented and sweeping crackdown on critics of the government, and one of its tools has been overbroad and vague anti-extremism legislation. As the space for freedom of speech in the traditional media narrows, the government is now going after the Internet and targeting individuals who try to stir public debate about sensitive issues, especially Ukraine.

Until her trial, Polyudova was relatively unknown. But by criminally prosecuting her, the government is sending a chilling signal to Internet users across country – if you think you can speak your mind online, think again.

Land of NOD

nod miting-lurye portait — “Stop American demonocracy! Don’t touch Russia, gentlemen! My country is a great power!” Demonstrators at September 19, 2015, NOD rally on the Field of Mars, Petersburg. Photo by and courtesy of Vadim F. Lurye

Petersburgers, Stop the “Social Bombardment” of the Population!

Coordinator: Tatyana Chuprova

Venue: 4:00 p.m., September 19, 2015, Field of Mars, St. Petersburg

Our President has made significant progress in the struggle to return the sovereignty lost by our country after the defeat of 1991.

The United States could not remain indifferent to a colony’s desire to gain independence. The decline in oil prices, the coup in Ukraine, and the sanctions are all episodes in the economic war declared by the West against our Motherland.

As a result of his commitment to a national course for the country’s development, the head of state’s rating has reached a historic high. Contrary to the expectations of enemies, the people love Vladimir Vladimirovich for his merits.

Therefore, the West has moved on to the next phase, “social bombardment.” The dismissal of police officers, layoffs of doctors, cancellation of welfare benefits, increases in utility rates, and so on are all aimed at undermining our leader’s rating.

The Central Bank is a vital link in the external governance of our country. Under the Constitution, the Central Bank is independent from Russian state authorities. And, according to international agreements, it is subject to the instructions of the IMF. As a consequence, loans in Russia are expensive, the President of Russia’s orders for de-offshoring the economy have been sabotaged, the exchange rate has collapsed, and, along with it, so, too, has the country’s economy.

Let us unite in the face of external threats! Stop “social bombardment”! Let’s express our support for the national leader Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!

nod miting-suggested image — “Rally, September 19. Stop the social bombardment of the population!” Image courtesy of rusnod.ru

Source: Russian National Liberation Movement (NOD) website. Translated by The Russian Reader. See my previous posts about NOD.

“Congratulate Me, I’m a Foreign Agent” (Dront Ecological Center, Nizhny Novgorod)

Congratulate Me, I’m a Foreign Agent
pippilotta-v-r.livejournal.com
May 14, 2015

It was to be expected, of course, and we all knew quite well approximately what would be written in the Ministry of Justice’s certificate of inspection, but for some reason it was unexpected all the same. Like a knife in the back.

Dront’s certificate of inspection was brought to our offices on Tuesday. I felt very bad about it all day. Plus, there was a lampoon on a stupid Nizhny Novgorod site (which I will not advertise here, of course) in which I was targeted personally. I even recalled the favorite joke of my youth, which I haven’t recalled for over ten years.

Piglet comes to Winnie the Pooh’s house and sees that the whole place is filled with blood. The bear is lying on the floor, his stomach ripped open, his guts hanging from the chandelier.

Piglet anxiously asks, “Winnie, Winnie, do you feel bad?

“Do I feel bad? Do I feel bad? Yes, it’s curtains for me!”

Because the problem is not the obvious disadvantages of this status, which we will legally challenge, of course. The problem is “faith in humanity.”

For an evening I lost my faith in humanity.

What has to be going through a person’s head to seek proof of “political activity” amongst people who protect nature on behalf of all citizens, and hence them as well? What kind of person do you have to be, for example, to classify money paid to do an analysis of a proposal to raise the level of the Cheboksary Reservoir as foreign financing, since the money came from the WWF (the Russian office of WWF, by the way)? I just hope that those three beauties from the Ministry of Justice who inspected us live somewhere in the Leninsky District, and their houses will be flooded when the reservoir rises.

Oh, to find out where they live and never to stand up for that corner of the city again. Let them build all the auto service centers and waste incineration plants right there!

And why do so-called patriots (we were inspected at the behest of the National Liberation Movement) so hate the natural environment in their own country? On the other hand, they love power in all forms. This phenomenon, incidentally, has haunted me for a while. So some people have decided they are “Russian patriots,” and what do they do? That’s right, they set out to spoil the lives of people trying to do something good for their country. I still remember those young men, “Russian patriots,” who six years ago tried to attack me, a pregnant Russian woman, just because my female friends and I were coming back from a protest rally against a nuclear power plant. Of course, there are different views on atomic energy, and debates can be very emotional, but it’s a matter for debate, damn it, not a matter for a fist fight. And they would have attacked us, and maybe even stabbed us with something, but we ran and got on a bus, and the driver closed the door on them. One young man with wicked eyes kept banging his fists against the windows, spewing out his anger and hatred. Roman Zykov, that wasn’t you, by chance? And now you’ve grown up and become an informer?

During its April 17, 2015, broadcast, the NNTV program Itogi nedeli aired a segment on the “foreign agent” case against Nizhny Novgorod’s Dront Ecological Center. The segment begins at the 1:40 mark, with the presenter explaining that the Ministry of Justice launched its audit of Dront after receiving a complaint from Roman Zykov of the National Liberation Organization (NOD). Zykov is interviewed on camera beginning at the 5:25 mark. He is identified as NOD’s “information officer.”

To be honest, I don’t understand any of this. I can’t get my head around it. I don’t believe there are people who really are happy, for example, if a highway or an asphalt plant is built near their home in place of a forest. People can be indifferent to environmental topics or indulge in pessimism because “everything has been decided, nothing can be changed.” I have seen this many times. But for people sincerely to desire the deterioration of their habitat, that I can not imagine. And I don’t understand how it can be called “patriotism.”

Well, the heck with them, the informants.

So the certificate of inspection was delivered to us. Here it is, this wonderful document. Of course, we have proven to be “foreign agents”: the law interprets the concept as broadly as possible. The inspectors had to prove a quite simple theorem: that we have foreign money (we can check off that box), and that we are engaged in political activity, that is, that we haven’t exactly been sitting on our asses but have been doing something. (Here we could check off a hundred boxes if we so desired.)

And the law does not require a logical connection between these parts of the theorem. It matters not a squat that the money was for one thing, and something else was deemed “political activity.”

Damn, when I was in university, “politics” meant being involved in the struggle for power. Nowadays, if you say it would be good idea to amend a law, you’re already a nasty political intriguer. And even if you praise a law, you’re an intriguer as well, because it is none of your damn business to evaluate laws.

You might think that all Russian environmental legislation is absolutely perfect: that it was handed down to us in the sacred tablets, and each word was cast in gold. This, to put it mildly, is not true. Moreover, these laws are constantly amended and changed, meaning the authorities are aware of their imperfections. It suffices to mention the new law on waste management. It was completely turned inside out and redrafted. I don’t really understand why we should stop criticizing laws.

The whole business with foreign money is also ridiculous.

After all, it doesn’t matter to the inspectors that the funds have been earmarked, for studying turtles, for example. (And, in fact, protection of animals is not deemed political activity, and that is stipulated in the law.) Or for seminars on sustainable development. Or for a public impact assessment of the proposal to raise the level of the Cheboksary Reservoir. No one except the WWF provided any money for this—no state agencies, no legislators, no businessmen—although the entire Nizhny Novgorod Region rose up as one against the proposal.

And it doesn’t matter that all these funds were not only earmarked but were quite small sums (less than one percent of our annual budget) and could not significantly have impacted our operations. We would have criticized the same laws even without this money. But who is interested in logic if you just have to tick off some boxes?

In short, the young female inspectors proved the theorem to their own satisfaction. But I just don’t have the heart to call them lawyers, because, for example, they don’t distinguish between federal and municipal (i.e., local) government. (Maybe employees of the Ministry of Justice don’t necessarily have to have a law degree?) Apparently, the way they see it, all power is sacred and should be beyond criticism.

Well, my depression has passed. It has been nice to see that many people support us and have stood up for us. It has been nice to read your kind words.

P.S. I will not approve any vicious comments, if they show up.

Translated by the Russian Reader. You can see the list of Russian NGOs included in the registry of “foreign agents” (as of May 15, 2015) here. This list is constantly updated, apparently.

Dmitry Kozhnev: Anyone Defending Their Rights Is Branded a Fifth Columnist and Agent of the State Department

“Anyone who tries to defend their rights is a fifth columnist and agent of the State Department”
A trade union leader talks about pressure from the security forces and badgering from the National Liberation Movement
Darina Shevchenko
March 24, 2015
Yod

The automotive industry has been laying off employees around the country. Since the beginning of the year, the demand for cars has fallen 20-30%. Management has forced workers to quit, shift to part-time work or agree to significant pay cuts. The Interregional Trade Union Workers Association (ITUWA) has countered with strikes and pickets. Center “E” (Center for Extremism Prevention) has responded by taking measures against union members. Last weekend, Center “E” officers detained members of the ITUWA Kaluga local. They demanded that the activists confess to working for western secret services and acting to destabilize the situation in Russia. Dmitry Kozhnev, leader of the ITUWA Kaluga local, told Yod that the trade union has long had a difficult relationship with the local security forces, and more recently, members of the National Liberation Movement (NOD) have targeted workers for persecution.

The ITUWA was founded in 2006 by members of trade union organizations from the Ford plant in the Petersburg suburb of Vsevolozhsk and the AvtoVAZ plant in Togliatti.*** The trade union unites workers from more than fifteen companies. Its chair, Alexei Etmanov, was elected to the legislative assembly of Leningrad Region in 2011. The ITUWA’s motto is “Don’t cry, organize!”

On what grounds were trade union members taken in by Center “E” over the weekend?

Under the pretext that a robber who had hit a passerby with a bottle and stolen something had dashed into the room where we had gathered for a routine meeting. About forty security forces officers arrived. They detained fifteen of us, took us to a police station, and asked us about our activities, what protests we were planning. They told us that, under the guise of defending workers’ rights, we were spying for the US, destabilizing the regime, and engaging in provocations. We hear this song from Center “E” constantly. Apparently, law enforcement officers find it difficult to believe that an organization can be independent and act on its own.

Have Center “E” and the FSB showed interest in your activity before?

Our union emerged in 2008. During this time we have become stronger and our actions have gotten results. In [2012], a strike at the Benteler Automotive plant led to the workers signing a collective agreement that we drafted. We got the bonus included in the salary and a ban on duties other than those stipulated in the contract. At the Volkswagen plant we forced management to increase salaries by almost four times, from seven to thirty thousand rubles a month.

rep_242_016 — Dmitry Kozhnev (left) on the picket line during the 2012 strike at Benteler Automotive

In the summer of 2013, Volkswagen management was changing equipment. They wanted to let the workers go for a week, and then have them work off the missed days on weekends. By law, management has a right to do this, but plant workers opposed it. They were furious at the prospect of working weekends in the summer, when every day off is worth its weight in gold. We told management they should pay the missed week as down time, while the workers would go to work voluntarily and at double the pay. Management stood their ground, and then we began to prepare for a strike. By the way, according to Russian law, it is almost impossible to strike. Management must be notified seven days in advance. During this time, management can succeed in appealing the strike in court and then the strike cannot start on time. So we start the strike and notify management simultaneously. That is what we did back then at Volkswagen. We also picketed dealerships and informed consumers that we could not vouch for the quality of the cars assembled during the strike. We got what wanted.

Now our trade union has influence at different plants and can exercise control over the situation. After the number of union members went over four hundred at Volkswagen in 2009, and we began doing street protests, Center “E” got on our case.

And as soon as relations between workers and management would heat up, Center “E” would show up and put pressure on us, including arrests, harassment, and surveillance. But pressure and persecution have only strengthened the organization.

Give an example of persecution by Center “E”.

As soon as our work started to produce results, we began getting summons to Center “E” and were threatened with criminal prosecution. Once they blocked my car on the street and took me down to the station. They tried to catch several comrades with allegedly faked sick leave forms, threaten to take them to court, and force them to inform on trade union leaders. One worker and trade union member had a weapon planted on him. He got into a car with security officials. They handed him a bundle, said it contained a gun used to commit a crime, and now he would either rat on his colleagues or be convicted for the crime. The comrade refused to be an informant and took the story public big time, and they left him alone. Another comrade of ours was press-ganged into the army. Because of a serious leg injury, the guy had been declared unfit for military service. During a routine medical exam at the draft board, he was suddenly declared healthy. He insisted on an independent medical examination. The guy was then abducted on the street and sent to the army. He served his term, and came back angry and able to use weapons. And he is working in the trade union again. The ranks of our trade union’s foes continue to swell. Recently, the National Liberation Movement (NOD) joined them.

How come? You don’t participate in opposition rallies, do you?

NOD considers us Banderites because anarchists carrying flags with anarchist symbols attend our rallies. They think that since the Banderites have black-and-red flags, and anarchists use the same colors, they are in cahoots. It is ridiculous, of course. It is useless to ask the NODites questions; it is better not to talk with these cartoon characters. Anatoly Artamonov, governor of Kaluga Region, has also called us agents of the West. And this is a guy who has built his region’s economy on cooperation with companies from NATO countries and has awards from NATO countries! This is the trend now. Anyone who defends their rights is a fifth columnist and agent of the State Department.

The security forces’ interest in you has to do with the crisis in the automotive industry and presumed activism on the part of trade unions. At what plants is the situation the most tense?

It is easier to say which plants have no problems: the plants that produce luxury-class cars. They are the only ones where everything is all right. All the other plants are undergoing layoffs, which are hidden for the time being. Workers are being persuaded to quit voluntarily, to accept part-time schedules and pay cuts. But I think the crisis will continue, and the actions of management will become harsher. But we will vigorously defend the interests of workers.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of Russian Reporter

*** Editor’s Note. The ITUWA was originally known as the Interregional Trade Union of Autoworkers (ITUA). It changed its name in 2013, although the union’s well-known abbreviation in Russian (MPRA) has remained the same.

NODsat

While trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of Russia’s National Liberation Movement (NOD), who organized the alternately comic and dismal “Anti-Maidan” rally on the Field of Mars in Petrograd this past Saturday, I discovered (via their website) that NOD had an affiliate in London, the so-called For Russia Party.

NOD-5840 — Anti-Maidan rally, Petrograd, February 21, 2015. Photo courtesy of Sergey Chernov

The For Russians, it turns out, have typed up quite an ambitious platform:

1. Entry of the United Kingdom (UK) into the Customs Union with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus

2. Introduce a visa-free regime between England [sic] and all countries of the Customs Union.

3. Exit of the UK from the European Union, which has been steadily taking on the features of a union of European states based on fascist ideology.

4. Exit of Great Britain [sic] from the aggressive NATO bloc.

5. Entry of Great Britain into an alliance with Russia for the mutual strengthening of their defense.

6. Introduce compulsory Russian language instruction in UK schools.

7. Introduce the teaching of classic Russian and Soviet literature in UK schools.

8. Protect the property of Russian Federation citizens in Great Britain.

9. Introduce free access for the public in both countries to products and goods from both the English [sic] and Russian markets.

10. Make cheap heat and electricity from Russia available to the citizens of Great Britain.

11. Establish May 9 as a public holiday in England.

12. Special rights and protections for Russian speakers in England.

13. Introduce the legislative framework for preventing manifestations of Russophobic propaganda in British media.

You can visit their digs in Covent Garden if you’d like to join up.

__________

Anti-Maidan Actions Shouldn’t Make Putin Feel Secure, Vishnevsky Says
Paul Goble
February 22, 2015
Window on Eurasia

Staunton, February 22 – The Kremlin-organized Anti-Maidan demonstration in Moscow should not make Vladimir Putin feel secure because it was in reality an updated version of the Day of the Black Hundreds, Boris Vishnevsky says, groups organized by the tsarist regime to show support for the autocracy but that later did nothing to defend it.

Just as a century ago, demonstrators paid for by the regime or pushed to take part by their employers or officials went into the street to “denounce the revolution, praise autocracy, demand the preservation of the existing order and destroy ‘the enemies of the tsar and Fatherland,’” the Yabloko St. Petersburg city deputy says.

In its current incarnation, “the heirs” of the Black Hundreds denounce the Maidan, praise Putin and demand the destruction of ‘the Fifth Column,’” led by notorious Stalinists, supporters of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and demonstrating by their slogans – including “’Putin is Better than Hitler’” – their level of sophistication.

Also like their tsarist-era predecessors, the Anti-Maidan organizers are spectacularly unfortunate in identifying themselves in this way, as becomes obvious, Vishnevsky says, if one compares the Maidan and the Anti-Maidan and if one considers how the Black Hundreds groups behaved when push came to shove — and how the Anti-Maidan people are likely to.

In Kyiv, people came into the Maidan “to drive out a corrupt regime.” In Moscow, they “came to the ‘Anti-Maidan’ in order to express their loyalty and support to the powers that be.” They did not demand the regime meet its obligations to the people but only and instead that “the power not change.”

That may sound good to Putin and his backers, Vishnevsky continues, but he ought not to be too encouraged by this. That is because “when his power begins to shake, not one of those who came to the ‘Anti-Maidan will come out in his defense” – just as a century ago, “not one of the Black Hundreds types came out to defend the tsarist power.”

But if Putin does not care to look that far back in time, he might consider a more recent example, the St. Petersburg deputy says. None of those who had shouted “’Glory to the CPSU!’” or denounced “’the crimes of American imperialism’” came out to defend the communist regime when it began to fall apart.

Indeed, he suggests, like their predecessors, those in the Anti-Maidan who “equate Putin with Russia” and swear that they will ‘not give him up’” will betray him among the first. If Putin doesn’t believe that” – and he probably doesn’t – “then let him ask Yanukovich,” an even more recent victim of the delusion of those in power about how much support they have.

But there are more reasons for Putin to be worried. The extremist slogans on offer in the Anti-Maidan action, including anti-Semitic tropes that also link it with the Black Hundreds of the end of the Russian Imperial period, the lack of support from those whose names were invoked, and the small size of Anti-Maidan actions outside of Moscow should be of even greater concern.

As Forum-MSK.org points out today, the workers of the Urals Wagon Factory (Uralvagonzavod) who Putin sees as symbolic of his support among Russia’s silent majority and who were referred to be speakers at yesterday’s event in Moscow are anything but enthusiastic about him and his policies.

Lacking new orders, that plant is cutting back production plans and laying off workers, a situation that is replicated at many industrial sites around the Russian Federation and that hardly is an advertisement for the successes of the Putin regime or a reason for workers to give it more than lip service support.

Outside of the Moscow ring road, there were a number of Anti-Maidan actions. But because the PR needs of the regime were largely satisfied by the 35,000-person crowd in Moscow that could be shown on television and because the regional governments now lack the resources to do more, they were very small, in some cases no more than a handful and in others only a few dozen or a few hundred.

The Kremlin may not care a lot about the size – few in the Moscow media and even fewer Western reporters will cover anything outside of the capitals – but it probably should be worried that those taking part were in many cases the very Russian nationalist extremists it has been prosecuting and that their slogans were even more extreme than those in Moscow.

Moreover, the Kremlin’s PR specialists may be nervous about what happened when regional media picked up on that: In many cases, they were not afraid to say that “the meeting in support of Putin … failed.” That is exactly what a Karelian news agency did.

In Petrozavodsk, the republic capital, the agency said, a meeting had been scheduled as part of “an all-Russian action ‘in support of national leader Vladimir Putin’” with slogans like “’It is [time] to drive out ‘the fifth column.’” But in the event, Vesti.Karelia.ru noted, “only 15 people” came out in behalf of those ideas.

It may be that the men in the Kremlin won’t take notice of this; but there is no question that the people of Karelia will.