The story of Zakhar Zaripov, dying of cancer in prison while serving time for a social media post
Prison medicine is not known for its diligence. It can do little to help seriously ill people and plays on the side of the officials who run penal colonies and pretrial detention centres. The story of Zakhar Zaripov is a case in point. For a year doctors delayed doing analyses and making a diagnosis, even as he was writing things like this to his wife: “I feel bad, it hurts, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, it’s hard for me to breathe, I’m dying.”
Zaripov is indeed dying: he has stage IV salivary gland cancer. According to the law, the authorities are obliged to release him, but the appeals court hearing on the matter has been postponed for over six months, says Zaripov’s defense lawyer Konstantin Bubon.
Zakhar Zaripov was born and lived in Sovetskaya Gavan, a town in the Khabarovsk Territory. He taught maths at evening schools in penal colonies. He was also fond of science fiction and wrote novels about popadantsy (accidental time travelers). Zaripov also wrote about politics at the LiveJournal account scribble_33. As the teacher himself says, many people had access to the account.
On 2 March 2022, a post was published on scribble_33 suggesting that Ramzan Kadyrov oust Putin and make Chechnya independent. It is not known who wrote it; Zaripov says it wasn’t him. Police investigators, citing indirect testimony by the staff at the penal colony where the teacher worked, decided that it was Zaripov.
The court agreed with the findings of the investigators and sentenced Zaripov to five years in a medium security penal colony. The teacher was arrested when his wife was in the last months of being pregnant with their second child. Zaripov has not seen his youngest daughter yet, as he is imprisoned in Khabarovsk, which is far away and expensive to visit. It is unclear whether he will see her at all.
In September 2023, Zaripov discovered a strange tumour in his mouth. He was able to see a surgeon only two months later. The doctors then began doing analyses and ultrasounds on him, but they failed to diagnose him and kept postponing his treatment. Because of the pain, Zaripov stopped sleeping on his right side, and because the tumor in his mouth has grown so large it hurts when he eats.
In July 2024, Zaripov was diagnosed with stage IV salivary gland cancer. But the final case conference did not meet until September. Prison officials plan to hospitalize Zaripov, but it is known whether he will have time to receive any treatment and whether he will be released home.
Russia’s best troops are now concentrated in another country. Moscow and Putin are completely defenseless. Hold back your troops. Do not send your best men to die in Kiev — send them to take Moscow!
Under current conditions, a limited contingent of a few thousand bayonets would easily take control of government buildings in Russia. You would declare that you have taken power, overthrow a dictator already condemned by the entire world, and stop the war.
This would allow Chechnya to gain independence and avenge all the deaths and humiliation inflicted by the Russian authorities over the past twenty-six years.
This is a perfect historical chance. There may not be another one in your lifetime.
Lenin took Russia with 1,500 men personally devoted to him. You have 40,000 top-notch fighters at your disposal. That’s quite enough.
The criminal war as such does not outrage them. The war itself completely suits them all. They love this war. They just don’t like that their slave husbands are kept at the front for too long without leave.
Source: KOLOKOL XXI (Telegram), 8 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. Specifically, the women in this video appeal to Vladimir Putin ask that men who are mobilized to fight in Ukraine (as their husbands and sons were, allegedly, in September 2022) should spend no more than six months at the front and should be relieved by “trained reserves as soon as possible”: “Our men need R&R. Send our men back home,” says one of the women. The woman shown holding a baby, at the end of the video, suggests that the mobilized men be relieved by some of the “over four and a half million professionals” serving in the Emergencies Ministry, the Interior Ministry (i.e., the police), and the regular army. Nevertheless, the women unambiguously voice their support for the “special military operation,” while claiming that their own “lives are hell.”
Vladimir Putin visiting a training ground for mobilized soldiers. Source: Russian Defense Ministry via Republic
Russian troops at the front are severely depleted due to the lack of rotation, which in turn is caused by a shortage of reserves, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in the United States. Meanwhile, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, radiates optimism on this score. At a meeting to discuss reinforcing the Russian armed forces with contract soldiers, held the other day, Medvedev claimed that, according to the Defense Ministry, over 185,000 men had enlisted in the Russian army over the past six months, during the period 1 January to 4 July 2023.
Data from various sources suggest that a significant portion of Russia’s current contingent of “contract soldiers” consists not so much of men who for one reason or another (usually financial, less often ideological) actually have volunteered to go to fight in Ukraine, as of men who have been turned into mercenaries under contract in a “voluntary-compulsory” manner.
We have already reported that, judging by Rosstat’s numbers on migration flows in the Russian Federation in 2022, Tajik nationals have been forced to “volunteer” in this fashion. And this includes not only Tajiks who, by an unfortunate coincidence, came to Russia to work in 2022 and now can only come return to Russia via the front line in Ukraine, and from there go home either in a plastic bag or in a wheelchair. Attempts are underway to make “volunteers” of Tajiks who have not left their country and had no plans to leave, but who are forcibly mobilized into the Russian army by the government of their native Tajikistan.
It seems, however, that although the Russian leadership is running out of Tajiks, it intends to keep fighting for a long time. For this reason, it could find no better solution than to forcibly reclassify young men already conscripted in Russia itself as “contract soldiers.” This campaign, apparently, has also enjoyed only fair to middling success. Moreover, so much so that the authorities are now not only forcing mostly previously untouchable young Muscovites to join the army (and in the current circumstances this actually means sending them to the front), but even those residents of the capital who have papers certifying them as unfit for military service on medical grounds.
The Telegram channel of the human rights organization Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg relates the story of nineteen-year-old Muscovite Andrei B. Armed with medical certificates that should have enabled him to receive a reprieve from the army (in particular, he needs surgery due to a joint disease), Andrei and his lawyers went to the military enlistment office in Moscow’s Izmailovsky District. However, the enlistment officers immediately confiscated Andrei’s [internal] passport, forbade him from using his phone, and kicked his lawyers out into the street. Basically, Andrei was forcibly captured by the Russian National Guard and held by its officers inside the military enlistment office. Summoned by Andrei’s lawyers, the police who arrived at the scene assisted the Guardsmen, rather than the young man, who was being held by force. Andrei became ill when his blood sugar spiked. An ambulance crew summoned by the lawyers were not allowed to attend to the young man.
Consequently, according to the post on Soldiers’ Mothers Telegram channel, “assisted by the Russian National Guard, the young man, who could barely stand on his feet, was escorted to the assembly point, where neither his mother nor his lawyers were admitted. Unfortunately, it proved impossible to secure the young man’s release from the assembly point.”
According to Soldiers’ Mothers, such cases are widespread. On the same day, a dozen more young Muscovites were sent to the assembly point from this same enlistment office alone.
In fact, we are witnessing the next wave of a covert “partial mobilization.”
There are two significant points about this story. The first is that nearly all the forcibly mobilized young men had medical reprieve certificates and went to the military enlistment offices with their lawyers, who, in turn, had been provided to them by human rights organizations. In this regard, the naivety of human rights activists, including the Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers, and commentators of this story on social media, who have been outraged by the “violations of the rights” of young men thus “shanghaied” into the army, cannot help but astonish us.
The second point is that the large-scale dispatch of Muscovites into combat suggests that the regime has fewer and fewer human resources available to it. The quality of these mobilizable reserves is questionable, however.
Bloomberg identifies convicts and Kadyrov’s Chechen fighters as two other additional sources for replenishing the Russian army’s manpower.
Of course, the Russian Defense Ministry can continue to recruit convicts, but the numbers and quality of these soldiers will steadily decrease. This is simply because the numbers of murderers, robbers, and rapists who have already been killed or seriously injured, and whom Prigozhin prioritized over other residents of prisons and penal colonies, since they had the specific relevant “background,” have for obvious reasons greatly decreased. As we recall, Prigozhin himself claimed that 20,000 Wagner fighters, half of whom were ex-convicts, had been killed in the battles for Bakhmut alone.
The number of Chechen soldiers whom Kadyrov is willing to send to the front is also limited, since he has to maintain significant forces in Chechnya itself, both to protect his own clan from possible uprisings, and in case of “unforeseen” circumstances during which the federal center would be greatly weakened and he would finally deem it possible to declare himself an independent sovereign. Whatever the case, Kadyrov has cited two figures: 7,000 of his loyalists already in the combat zone and an additional 2,400 men undergoing training. Slim pickings, as the saying goes.
The quality of these “TikTok warriors” is also questionable. Not because Chechens don’t know how to fight. They do know how to fight, as they proved in both Chechen wars, in 1994–1996 and 1999–2004. But this is not their war.
Sooner or later, a significant percentage of Russian soldiers will reach the same conclusion.
Men in military uniforms robbed a magic store in Belgorod.
Yesterday afternoon, two men in camouflage who had allegedly returned from the war zone entered the store, Promagia, on People’s Boulevard. The shopkeepers claim that the two men introduced themselves as “Wagnerians.” Video footage of the incident shows that one of the men sported a Wagner PMC patch on his rucksack.
Footage of the alleged incident at the Promagia magic store in Belgorod, as posted on Telegram
According to the shopkeepers, at first the military men tried to extort money: allegedly, the previous tenant was in debt to them. When the shopkeepers explained that they were new tenants, the men in uniform did not calm down and stole a pendant on a chain from the counter before snatching another item from a shopkeeper’s hands. When they were told they had to pay for the items, one of the “Wagnerians” replied that he had “given himself a gift.”
Police later arrived at the store to document the theft by the military men. The police told the shopkeepers that information about the same two soldiers had been reported by other shops.
Source: News Flash — Belgorod (Telegram), 9 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to News.ru for the tip. It is possible that this incident was cooked up and leaked into the media as part of the regime’s current smear campaign to discredit Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. But given that they are ruthless fascist thugs themselves, it is just as possible that two “Wagnerians” did rob the magic store on People’s Boulevard in downtown Belgorod. Stranger things have happened.
I’m writing once more about the Donbas and our true goals in carrying out the SMO. Everyone should know this, given that there are still many Russians wondering what it was all for. This category of people should know that the events in Donbas did not arise in a vacuum.
We are fighting not only for the liberation of peaceful people from years of Nazi tyranny. We are fighting for the future of our country, Russia — for our traditions and identity, for spiritual and moral values, for religion and the triumph of justice.
If we have been saying for many, many years that NATO’s force should not threaten us and prance at Russia’s borders, it only meant that we would not sit still and watch them place the sword of Damocles over us.
If we kept saying for a long time, patiently, discreetly, but intelligibly, that they shouldn’t torture and exterminate the Russian-speaking population of Donbas, it simply meant that they should be treated equally, respectfully, without prejudice.
Further, if we said that the Crimea is ours, [and] that this is the choice of Crimeans themselves, then it was not worth regularly and monotonously repeating that you would invade this area at the first opportunity.
Finally, if we persistently repeated that you could cherish and lust after your faceless LGBT masses as much as you wanted, but don’t impose it on us, it just meant that we wouldn’t allow it at home. We do not understand or accept it. But even in this case, sanctions were imposed on Russia — just for rejecting LGBT values.
Listen to the combat general, Hero of Russia, and commander of the Akhmad special forces battalion Apti Alaudinov. He uses accessible, simple words, and speaks reasonably and intelligibly. Everything he says is very clear and precise!
Source: Kadyrov_95 (Ramzan Kadyrov), Telegram, 10 September 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The apparent collapse of the Russian forces has caused shock waves in Moscow. The leader of the Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who sent his own fighters to Ukraine, said if there are not immediate changes in Russia’s conduct of the invasion, “he would have to contact the leadership of the country to explain to them the real situation on the ground.”
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, speaking in the State Duma on Tuesday, September 13, dubbed the “special operation in Ukraine” a war and called for a nationwide mobilization in Russia.
“How does a special military operation differ from a war? You can stop a military operation at any time. You cannot stop a war: it ends either with victory or defeat. I’m suggesting to you that there is a war going on, and we have no right to lose it. We must not panic now. We need a full mobilization of the country; we need completely different laws,” the online publication Sota quotes Zyuganov as saying.
Gennady Zyuganov, chair of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russian Federation (KPRF): “Today, Russia’s fate depends on victory in Donbas. We need a total mobilization of the country. We need completely different laws.” Source: Sota
Earlier, Communist Party MP Mikhail Matveyev suggested that governors and MPs volunteer for the front. For his part, Mikhail Degtyarev, the governor of Khabarovsk Territory, said a few days ago that he would like to go to Ukraine as a volunteer, but he could not, because he had no right to resign his post. Residents of the region launched a petition proposing to “help the governor realize his dream to go to fight in Donbas.” It has been signed by several tens of thousands of people.
Later, the press service of the Communist Party commented on the party leader’s statement. Zyuganov had spoken primarily about mobilizing Russia’s economy, political system and resources in the face of the impending threat, said Communist Party press secretary Alexander Yushchenko. He claimed that [Zyugannov’s statement] had nothing to do with the military. “Some groups are engaged in outright provocations, like the people who have spread this news. I would would say that such people should generally be executed,” Yushchenko said.
“An Alt-future map where Russia is divided. Could be Post-WW3 or after collapse due to economic sanctions etc.” Source: Reddit
Re: the “volunteer battalions.” Many people, including me, have spoken out quite harshly here [on Facebook] about the irresponsible fools who have posted map[s] of a “collapsed Russia” on the web. The centripetal forces in the country will be more powerful than the centrifugal ones for a long time to come, and if Russia collapses, those daydreamers will definitely not be involved. Nevertheless, work on its collapse is in full swing in Russia itself, and the country’s authorities are leading the effort. Understand me correctly: I am sure that Putin and his friends do not want disintegration, because Russia has become and will forever remain their only available feeding trough. However, heedlessness, as always, trumps vested interest. As in the case of covid, what the center does not cope with, it sloughs off on the regions. But if this was relatively harmless when it came to covid, it is not so harmless when it comes to the “volunteer battalions” being formed on a regional basis. When the “volunteers” return — and some of them will return, inevitably — a small but cohesive and extremely angry force with combat experience and, most likely, access to weapons, will emerge in each region. Precisely due to its local identity, it will become a convenient tool for factions seeking local power. During a social and political crisis, this desire can be realized, but not without a local armed force. And such a force will be there for the taking. The infamous Girkin proved in practice in Sloviansk that even a small group like this can easily take power in a medium-sized city if it encounters no resistance. It will be both easy and pleasant for local security forces to negotiate with “veterans” if such agreements are sanctioned by the “elites” in the towns and villages, but especially in the ethnic republics. A scenario in which Russia will break up into 80+ independent countries cannot be precluded. These countries, however, will not be benevolent democracies in the European orbit, but gangster autocracies. And Russia is being pushed in this direction not by its real or imaginary enemies, but by its own authorities.
“A Map of the Free States of Post-Russia. Decolonizing and Restructuring Russia. It’s Time for Indigenous Peoples and Regions to Take Back Their Independence and Sovereignty.” Source: We Survived Mariupol, 25 July 2022, Telegram
Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov meeting on 11 August 2022 with his military commanders. The meeting is conducted in Chechen with occasional infusions of isolated Russian words and phrases.
Western intelligence services have never really disguised their plans for our country. Their dream is Russia’s complete collapse and, in fact, the enslavement of its peoples. Our country has always been and remains the West’s number one target. The fact of the matter is that the Russian Federation’s multi-ethnic peoples have never accepted an alien ideology and have historically maintained their identity, mindset, and age-old principles.
And if at one time entire foreign institutions tried to achieve this goal by unleashing two wars in the Chechen Republic, later there were attempts to achieve it via South Ossetia and even Syria. Nothing came of them.
Now the West has played the Ukraine card. But here, too, all their efforts are doomed to utter failure. And I am very glad that the new tactical actions used by our combatants during the special military operation in the Donbass are bringing great success. I had no doubts about this initially. Today it is already obvious that the results have exceeded all expectations.
On Thursday, I met with the commanders and fighters of our detachments involved in the SMO. We once again had a warm conversation in an informal setting, discussing the successes we have achieved. We also discussed in detail the issue of improving the material resources for units from the Chechen Republic, of additionally supplying and equipping our fighters with modern weapons, equipment, and gear.
The most important thing is that [our] warriors are in great fighting spirit. The lads are clearly aware that they are fighting for the sake of all straight-thinking humanity and for the triumph of law, order, and justice. That is why, even after returning home, almost all SMO combatants are eager to go back. They have only one desire — to go all the way alongside their comrades. This is true patriotism, which means that victory will be ours! Absolutely! There is simply no other option.
Source: Ramzan Kadyrov, Telegram, 11 August 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The two-week accelerated tactical and weapons training courses for the latest group of volunteers at the Russian Special Forces University @ruspetsnaz in Gudermes have ended.
The soldiers, who are from various regions of Russia, are full of determination and ready to join the battle for truth and justice on the territory of Donbass and Ukraine.
One more flight headed for the site of the special military operation from Hero of Russia Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov Grozny International Airport.
Our dear BROTHERS — Chairman of the Parliament of the [Chechen Republic] Magomed Daudov @MDaudov_95, Deputy Prime Minister of the CR Abuzaid Vismuradov, Secretary of the Security Council of the CR Apty Alaudinov @sovbez95, Deputy Interior Minister and Police Chief of the Interior Ministry of the CR Aslan Irakhanov, and Head of the Grozny Transit Police of the Russian Interior Ministry Ali Tagirov — had parting words for the volunteers
They noted that fascism and Banderism had to be eradicated from the land of Donbass, [and] that [the volunteers] had been given the honorable mission of being part of the force that would bring about the triumph of justice and victory over evil.
We wish our soldiers a successful hunt for Banderites, Nazis and Shaitans! May their joint efforts, courage and heroism bring victory to Russia and freedom to Donbass! AKHMAD IS POWER!!!
Source: Kadyrov_95 (Telegram), 8 August 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The terminal building at Grozny Airport. The inscription over the entrance reads, “My weapon is truth, and all armies are powerless before this weapon. A[khmad] Kadyrov.” Source: Wikipedia
[…]
According to investigations by Novaya Gazeta and human rights organization Human Rights Watch, as a person in the inner circle of Kadyrov, Daudov often carries out his “special instructions”.
In 2014, according to a Novaya Gazeta investigation, Daudov participated in the torture and beating of detained president of Assembly of the Caucasian people, R[uslan] Kutayev.
In 2015, Novaya Gazeta reported that Chechen authorities were concerned about “true news” about the republic, claiming that bloggers writing about Chechnya in a manner viewed as “incorrect” by the authorities were illegally pressured and forced to apologise. Daudov was mentioned in this context.
On 16 and 17 January 2016, Daudov made posts on his Instagram account that contained insults and veiled threats against members of the Russian opposition, including journalists and right activists (Alexei Venediktov, I.A. Kalyapin, K.E. Merzlikin, A.A. Navalny, L.A. Ponomaryov, M.B. Khodorkovsky, V.I. Shenderovich and I.V. Yashin. Editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow A.A. Venediktov said: “Magomed Daudov’s statements [addressed to the opposition are] a serious threat and inadequate reaction to inconvenient issues of murder of Boris Nemtsov and a question to investigation and Chechen authorities”.
In a 12 October 2016 Instagram post, Daudov again made veiled insults against I.A. Kalyapin, chairman of interregional public organization Committee Against Torture. Gregory Shvedov, editor-in-chief of online newspaper Caucasian Knot submitted an application to the Investigative Committee of Russia, trying to bring Daudov’s publication under corpus delicti under article 144, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Russia. The Investigative Committee of Russia investigated but chose not to open a criminal case against Daudov.
Press articles covered Daudov’s conflict with the acting Chairman of the Supreme Court of Chechnya T.A. Murdalov.
According to some journalists, on 6 October 2016, Daudov came to the Supreme Court of Chechnya accompanied by security, entered the office of acting Chairman T. A. Murdalov and began to beat him, demanding that he write the resignation letter for health reasons. Murdalov refused.
According to media and human rights activists, Daudov participated in the prosecution of homosexuals in Chechnya and “played the key role in cleaning of the republic from gays, which was approved by republican management Journalists provided evidence that Daudov personally went to secret prisons in Argun and Grozny and managed the transfer of detained gays to relatives.
The Ukrainian authorities would never control the liberated areas of the Kharkiv region again, said the head of the temporary civilian administration of the Kharkiv region Vitaly Ganchev.
“We will receive comprehensive assistance. That is, Ukraine is not coming back here. And every time I am asked whether the Ukrainian authorities will return, whether we can feel calm, I […] tell everyone that no, none of those Nazis will be coming back here, we are going to build a decent life,” he said.
Source: TASS, Telegram, 20 July 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The behavior of some Western countries is comparable to the behavior of these puppies. When the special military operation in Ukraine began, everyone seemingly barked in unison, spewing columns of flame and, periodically, sanctions. Realizing the futility of their actions, silence momentarily ensued, and then a plaintive whining was heard. All their supposedly noble efforts had played a cruel joke on them.
Thinking before doing is a luxury beyond the reach of some Western leaders. Who would have thought that an unprecedented number of sanctions against Russia would do absolutely nothing. The people are not rebelling, gasoline prices have not soared, and store shelves are chockablock with a variety of products. The analogy with the feckless barking of small puppies is more than apt, although it is an invidious comparison.
Source: Ramzan Kadyrov (“Kadyrov _95”), Telegram, 20 July 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
An artful juxtaposition of a poster advertising a theatrical performance of Dostoevsky’s The Devils (left), and a Zwastika on a touchscreen map of the Petersburg subway (right), taken at the Tekhnologicheskii institut station by PZ, a grassroots activist. Unfortunately, I know the station well as it was my “home” station for four years.
Truly revolutionary transformations are gaining ever greater momentum… These colossal changes are, of course, irreversible. Both at the national and global levels, the foundations and principles of a harmonious, more just, socially oriented, and secure world order are being developed — an alternative to the unipolar world order that has existed so far, which by its nature, of course, has become a brake on the development of civilization.
The model of total domination by the so-called golden billion is unfair. Why should this “golden billion” dominate the entire population of the planet, impose their own rules of behavior based on the illusion of exclusivity?! It divides peoples into first and second class, and therefore is racist and neocolonial in its essence, and the globalist, supposedly liberal ideology underlying it has increasingly taken on the features of totalitarianism, restraining creative endeavors [and] free historical creation!
One gets the impression that the West simply has no model of the future of its own to offer the world. Yes, of course, it is no coincidence that this “golden billion” became “golden,” that it achieved a lot, but it took up its positions not only thanks to certain ideas that it implemented. To a large extent it took up its positions by robbing other peoples in Asia and Africa! That’s how it was! India was robbed so much! Therefore, even today, the elites of this “golden billion” are terrified that other centers of global change could present their own scenarios!
No matter how much Western and supranational elites strive to maintain the existing order of things, a new era is coming, a new stage in world history!
And only truly sovereign states can ensure dynamic growth, set an example for others in standards of living and quality of life, in defending traditional values, lofty humanistic ideals, and models of development in which the individual is not the means, but the supreme goal!
Sovereignty is the freedom of national development, and therefore [the freedom] of each individual. It is the technological, cultural, intellectual, and educational viability of the state — that’s what it is! And, of course, sovereignty’s most important component is a responsible, industrious, and nationally minded, nationally facing civil society!
Source: Andrei Kolesnikov, “Vladimir Putin spun the turbine at GES-2,”Kommersant, 20 July 2022. I have removed Mr. Kolesnikov’s editorial asides and insertions from the text of the monologue quoted, above. Translated by the Russian Reader
The second week of March 2022 again proved cheerless, to put it mildly, nullifying even more previously unshakable habits. Even the usual traces of the vital functions of urban birds are already causing vague fears in the wake of news reports about “foreign biological laboratories.” Of course, fear has big eyes, and there are spots on the Sun [of Russian poetry], but no matter how many worries we have, we can definitely say that nothing can spoil our hope and faith in the best outcome. Anikushin’s Pushkin is always washed in the spring, and since spring is already in full swing, he will soon be unblemished again. And then, before you know, we will be made cleaner ourselves!
Source: “Photo of the Week: Alexander Petrosyan on the Stained Sun of Russian Poetry,” 18 March 2022, Novyi Prospekt. Translated by the Russian Reader
A close-up of the Pushkin monument on Pushkinskaya Street in Petersburg, 23 March 2018. Photo by the Russian Reader
Liberating a well-fortified city with a good engineering infrastructure is a big problem for the attacking side.
Despite all the difficulties, the fighters from Chechen Republic’s security forces, fulfilling their professional duty to protect the civilian population of the LPR, the DPR, and the whole of Ukraine from the encroachments of the Banderovites, Nazis, and Shaitans, have been coping with the tasks set by the leadership of the Russian Federation.
This time, another well-fortified Banderovite base was reclaimed by Russian troops. During this brilliant operation, a large group of civilians were released, whom the Nazis had been holding all this time without water, food, and medical care.
Our brave warriors helped the destitute and abandoned people to escape from the clutches of the Nazis. There were a large number of children among them, including infants. All the rescued were put into special vehicles and taken to a safe place. Chechen fighters provided them with food, water, medicines, and medical assistance.
It was nice to hear words of gratitude from civilians for the assistance, rescue, and warm attitude of our soldiers. Most importantly, people felt how well the Chechen liberators had been brought up.
The mission of holding captured positions and rescuing the civilian population of the liberated territories in Ukraine is being carried out by our fighters at the highest level. They are in a great mood and excellent fighting spirit, looking forward to a speedy victory.
Source: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Telegram account, 19 March 2022. Translated, so to speak, by the Russian Reader
The authorities say that Petersburg has achieved 100% herd immunity. Is it true?
The number of people who been vaccinated and people who have recovered from covid-19 in Petersburg speaks to the fact that the city has achieved 100% herd immunity, first deputy chair of the Health Committee Andrei Sarana said on the St. Petersburg TV channel.
Referring to the Health Ministry’s website, Sarana said that Petersburg had reached 100% collective immunity. According to the official, 3.14 million people, including more than 2,400 children, had been fully vaccinated in Petersburg.
According to Health Ministry’s guidelines, Petersburg has to vaccinate 80% of its entire population, excluding children and adults who cannot be vaccinated — this amounts to 3.5 million people. At the same time, it is not known how this approach works and whether it takes into account people who, for example, were vaccinated more than a year ago.
In fact, 2.9 million residents have undergone a full vaccination cycle in Petersburg, which is equal to only 55% of the total number of people officially residing in St. Petersburg (5.3 million people), according to city hall’s website. Only the covid crisis center reports that 3.5 million people in Petersburg have received at least one dose of a vaccine.
In mid-January, the authorities were already claiming that herd immunity in Petersburg, according to various calculation methods, was at either 88% or 100%. Bumaga discovered then that they were talking about a portion of the total number of the city’s residents. Read more here.
Dear compatriots! So as not to give my detractors cause for hysteria that I am exceeding my powers, I officially declare that this is my personal opinion, the humble opinion of Russian citizen Ramzan Kadyrov.
In my appeal there are two messages to two addressees — to the Ukrainian authorities and to the Ukrainian people.
Mr. Zelensky! The time for clowning has come to an end. The hour has come to fulfill one’s duty to one’s own people in order to avoid irreversible consequences. That is, today, more than ever, there is a need to implement the Minsk Accords, which were signed not only by the President of Russia, but also by the President of Ukraine. The strict implementation of the provisions spelled out in this document is the first important step in a political settlement of the growing confrontation not only between our countries, but also in reducing general tension in the global sense of the word. In this regard, you, as the guarantor of the Constitution and the security of your people and state, are simply obliged to do everything in your power to avoid bloodshed and establish peace. President Vladimir Putin and the peoples of Russia do not want war: we know firsthand the meaning of this terrible word. Be reasonable, Mr. Zelensky!
And now I want to address Ukrainians. My dear ones! I love Ukraine and its kind people. From the Soviet history class that I took at school, I know that Kievan Rus is the cradle of Russian statehood and Orthodoxy. Russians and Ukrainians are a single Slavic people with a common history, culture and religion. I will never believe that Ukrainians consider themselves part of the so-called Western world with all its degenerate “values” and Russophobic hysteria. Yes, that’s right, despite the fact that the current anti-national regime and its propaganda are doing everything to erase this sense of community. Somewhere in the depths of my soul I have a glimmer of hope that this historical justice [sic] will be restored by the Ukrainian people themselves without anyone’s help from outside. It cannot be that the spiritual and historical heirs of the great Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the brilliant writer Nikolai Gogol would not want eternal peace with fraternal Russia!
I fully support the decision of the State Duma to ask the President of the Russian Federation to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
I believe that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief will grant the request and our country will recognize the independent status of both republics. Vladimir Vladimirovich is a far-sighted and wise politician. I think he will definitely take such an important step for the advent of peace.
I am sure that this is not only my opinion, but also that of the majority of Russians. Residents of the DPR and LPR have been living under the yoke of lawlessness for many years, their right to self-determination ignored. In this situation, it is recognition of independence that will determine their status in the international arena and put an end to many years of confrontation and bloodshed.
The Chechen people perfectly remember what mayhem, violence and continuous fighting can lead to. We clearly remember the unenviable feeling of hopelessness and believe that only such a logical endpoint will save the inhabitants of these two republics.
A large-scale information campaign has been launched against Russia and the two republics. Every day, fakes [sic] are disseminated about a new date for the crossing of the Ukrainian border by Russian troops and the declaration of war. But everyone has forgotten that Ukraine has been waging such a war with its neighbors for eight years. The foreign media prefer to keep quiet about this.
If officials in Kiev are not going to implement the Minsk Accords, are not attempting to settle the issue peacefully, issue, are heating up the situation, and not looking for ways to solve the crisis, then it is more than logical that our President Vladimir Putin should take over the peacekeeping mission in this difficult political situation.
Peace will come to Donetsk and Lugansk after you say your WORD, Vladimir Vladimirovich!
Russia will not abandon the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics alone in the event of an invasion of their territory by the Ukrainian army — the response will be commensurate with the scale of aggression, Federation Council Chair Valentina Matviyenko said.
Valentina Matviyenko called even the idea of a war with Ukraine wild, noting that Russia would do everything on its part to prevent such a development of events.
“Our position has been clearly set out by the head of the Russian state: for our part, we will do everything so that there is no war with Ukraine. Not today, not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, never!” said the speaker of the Federation Council in an interview with Parlamentskaya Gazeta.
“Flights by Influential Russians in February-March 2020.” The light blue plane (M-YOIL) belongs to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin; the orange plane (LX-MOW), to VEB.RF CEO Igor Shuvalov; the green plane (VQ-VBQ), to Ramzan Kadyrov; the purple plane (P4-LIG), to Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov; and the yellow plane (M-SKSM), to Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of former Russian president and prime minister Sergei Medvedev. Graphic courtesy of MBKh Media
High-Flying VIPs: How Putin’s Inner Circle Flew to Europe Without Fear of the Coronavirus
Andrei Saveliev MBKh Media
March 26, 2020
The coronavirus arrived in Europe on January 24, when the first cases were reported in France. At the time, Russian authorities were in no hurry to take any measures. Moreover, Vladimir Putin’s inner circle continued to fly abroad. MBKh Media has compiled a map of international flights taken in February and March by several people close to the Russian head of state.
The most flights of all were made by a plane belonging to Svetlana Medvedeva, the wife of the former primer minister; the plane’s registration number is M-SKSM, and it used to belong to VTB Bank. Medvedeva started her month by flying from Nuremberg to Moscow on February 2. After that, she visited Innsbruck three times, Geneva twice, and Zurich, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Dubai, Munich, Riga, and the French resort of Aix-Les-Bains once each. The last flight took place on March 9, when Medvedeva’s plane returned from Paris via Riga to Moscow.
In second place for number of flights is the plane of Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov, registration number P4-LIG. He made his first flight in February on the seventh from Basel to Madrid. He then visited Barcelona four times, Venice and Seville twice, and Geneva, Vienna, Seattle, Wichita, and Chicago once each. Chemezov completed his travels on March 7 with a flight from Chicago to Moscow.
In third place is the plane of VEB.RF chair and former first Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, registration number LX-MOW. He made his first February flight from Moscow to London on the seventh. After that, he visited Tallinn, Riga, Dubai, Birmingham, Farnborough, Salzburg, and London again. The last flight was made on March 14, when the plane returned from Salzburg to Moscow.
Long-distance flights were also made by the plane of the head of another state-owned company, Igor Sechin. Thus, on February 4, his plane, registration number M-YOIL, made a flight from Moscow to New Delhi. The next day, the plane went straight from the Indian capital to Rome. In the following days, the aircraft visited Stavanger, London, Minsk, and Malta. The last flight is dated March 8: the plane returned from the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, where it stayed for four days.
Also, a plane belonging to Chechnya head Ramzan Kadyrov, registration number VQ-BVQ, flew during this period. Thus, on February 14, the plane returned from Basel to Grozny. According to tracking services, the plane had been in Switzerland since January 20. On February 26, the aircraft flew to Paris and back. It was on this day that the French capital hosted a show by fashion house Firdaws, run by Kadyrov’s daughter Aishat.
The airplanes of Medvedeva, Chemezov, Shuvalov, Sechin, and Kadyrov are registered in the Isle of Man, Aruba, Luxembourg, the Isle of Man, and Barbados, respectively. Translated by the Russian Reader
Milashina and Dubrovina had arrived in Grozny for the trial of blogger Islam Nukhanov, who shot a video entitled How Kadyrov and His Associates Live, Part 1. After the video was posted, Nukhanov was charged with illegal possession of weapons, punishable under Article 222 Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code.
Novaya Gazeta writes that the assault took place in the lobby of the Continent Hotel and near the building’s entrance. Unidentified men and women beat up lawyer Marina Dubrovina.
“It was mostly women who assaulted her, punching and kicking her,” the newspaper said.
The newspaper noted that the assailants videotaped the incident.
Milashina and Dubrovina are now having their injuries documented by physicians and plan to file charges with Chechen law enforcement authorities.
Human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina. “We are being driven to the crime scene in a police van with its lights flashing,” writes Elena Milashina.
Milashina has just written that Musa Bekov, a neurosurgeon at the Grozny hospital [where they went], refused to examine Dubrovina carefully.
“I examined you from a distance. Everything is fine, everything will heal. Have a nice day,” Milashina quoted the doctor as saying.
It so happened that four years ago, when Kadyrov’s men attacked our van in Ingushetia, lawyer Marina Dubrovina was the first person I called and told about it —while lying on the floor of the van, its windows broken. I was beaten with sticks, first in the van, and then in a roadside ditch. Several young women next to me were beaten in the same way.
Today in Grozny, Marina Dubrovina and Elena Milashina, from Novaya Gazeta, were attacked near a hotel. I would not be surprised if the perpetrators were the same, but the man who commissions all crimes in Chechnya is Ramzan Kadyrov. Novaya writes that Marina was beaten up.
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Chechen Man Who Shot Video “How Kadyrov and His Associates Live” Charged with Crime Mediazona
December 9, 2019
According to the newspaper, Nukhanov spent most of his time outside Chechnya, but in the spring he came to the republic to apply for a free operation. It writes that Nukhanov often watched the videos of opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov.
“He frequently raised in conversation the question of how people were so filthy rich and lived in such palaces in a subsidized republic with very high unemployment,” Novaya Gazeta writes.
On October 31, Nukhanov posted a video, entitled How Kadyrov and His Associates Live, on YouTube. Shot from a car, the video features houses in a Grozny neighborhood that Novaya Gazeta calls the “Chechen Rublyovka.”
The newspaper describes the video’s contents: “The dashcam blankly records the houses on either side of the road. The driver does not utter a single word.”
According to Novaya Gazeta, the next day men in camouflage uniforms burst into Nukhanov’s house and took the young man away. It writes that the men confiscated all of his telephones, his computer and CPU, and the “ill-fated” Ford Focus whose dashcam Nukhanov used to shoot his video.
Novaya Gazeta writes that a day after the arrest Nukhanov’s father saw his son at the police station. He had been beaten up, his hand was bandaged, and his clothes were bloody and nearly torn to shreds.
Nukhanov was charged with illegal possession of weapons, as punishable under Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code. According to investigators, the young man was summoned to the police station to “verify intelligence.” Once at the station, Nukhanov allegedly behaved suspiciously, and so it was decided to search him. Police allegedly found two gun cartridges in his pocket, and when they searched his car, they also found a pistol. The young man pleaded guilty on the advice of his state-appointed lawyer.
The newspaper writes that Nukhanov spent nearly a month in the basement of the Grozny central police station. The court remanded him in custody only on November 27. After his wife hired Nukhanov a “proper” lawyer, he withdrew his confession.
Thanks to Yegor Skovoroda for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader
“Flights by Influential Russians in February-March 2020.” The light blue plane (M-YOIL) belongs to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin; the orange plane (LX-MOW), to VEB.RF CEO Igor Shuvalov; the green plane (VQ-VBQ), to Ramzan Kadyrov; the purple plane (P4-LIG), to Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov; and the yellow plane (M-SKSM), to Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of former Russian president and prime minister Sergei Medvedev. Graphic courtesy of MBKh Media
“My poor head.” This was the photo that reporter Elena Milashina posted on 
Human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina. “We are being driven to the crime scene in a police van with its lights flashing,”