Igor Paskar: “What Did Each of Us Do to Stop This Nightmare?”

Igor Paskar in court. Photo courtesy of Solidarity Zone

On 31 May the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Igor Paskar to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of “vandalism” and “terrorism”. He was found guilty of burning a Z-banner [a pro-war symbol] and the symbolic firebombing of the FSB [Federal Security Service] building in Krasnodar. The day before his sentencing, Igor gave his final statement in court. Here is a translation of his speech:

Almost a year has gone by since I carried out this action. During that year, I pictured this moment time and again, the moment when I would be given the opportunity to make my final statement. I agonised over the words I would say, and the motives that drove me to act as I did.

During the last sitting, your honour, you asked whether I regret my actions. I understood that the extent of my professed regret would influence the severity of the sentence. But if I renounced my beliefs, I would be acting against my conscience.

On the contrary, during the time I have been in prison, I have seen firsthand the injustices perpetrated against the people who we call our brothers: both prisoners of war who have served in the Ukrainian armed forces and ordinary Ukrainian citizens.

The war – or whatever term we use to label it – came to their homes, destroying their lives as they knew them. No matter what slogans and geopolitical interests we use to varnish this, in my eyes it cannot be justified.

Do I regret what has happened? Yes, perhaps I’d wanted my life to turn out differently – but I acted according to my conscience, and my conscience remains clear.

Rather than reflecting on who is right and who is guilty, I would like to pose this question: what did each of us do to stop this nightmare? What, ten or fifteen years from now, will we tell our children and grandchildren about these troubled times?

Unfortunately, God has not granted me the joy of fatherhood; the people who were closest to me have gone, and I am left alone with myself. It was easy for me to do what I did, even though I was well aware of the consequences. There was no-one to agonise about my fate, no-one to worry about me, or to cheer me on. But what I really did not expect was the huge number of letters and messages of support that I have received.

People have written from every corner of Russia, and not only Russia. Many were grateful for my position, so completely at odds with the notion of unanimous national support for what is being perpetrated. There were so many messages of encouragement: “stay strong”, “don’t despair”. So many warm words, so much sympathy.

But I’ll be so bold as to read just one part of a letter that I received in May, which really touched me, and pushed me to write this final statement to the court. Here it is:

“There is very little left of everyday life. It turns out that we can’t live everyday lives anymore. I am listening to the memoirs of prisoners from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Right now, I’m on the breath-taking biography of [the actress] Tamara Petkevich [who spent seven years in a prison camp]. She was arrested in 1943 and lived until 2017. When they came for her, she was only 22 – just a girl, half the age I am now. I have not read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, and I never got round to Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales either. But now I’m listening to Petkevich, and it’s making me realise that this is exactly what we must listen to, what we must read at school. As a country we are obsessed with the past, but we hardly ever think about the present or the future. The Americans have their American dream: something to strive for. We have nothing but a fixation on that which happened long ago, that which cannot return. But time and again we try to bring back what has passed, and these attempts are absolutely pointless. It’s as though the whole country is stuck in the mud. As individuals we are caught in our feelings. It’s terrible that even now, for as long as we stubbornly turn our heads back, we will never live happily, never the way we want to. Let’s hope people can find happiness in the little things.”

You can support Igor Paskar by sending letters:

□ Address: Russia 344022, Rostov-on-Don, 219 Maksim Gorky Street, SIZO-1, Igor Konstantinovich Paskar (d.o.b. 1976)

□ You can send letters online via the volunteer service RosUznik.

Solidarity Zone gives full support to Igor Paskar. His legal representative is Felix Vertegel.

Note. Letters sent to Russian detention facilities that are not in Russian are unlikely to be delivered to prisoners, and RosUznik is also a Russian-language service. If you send short messages to Igor via Solidarity Zone supporters in the UK at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, we will arrange for them to be translated and passed on.

□ More about Solidarity Zone on Facebook and Telegram. A report of the organisation’s work in May is here. Links to more information in English here. Russian original of Igor Paskar’s statement here.

Source: People and Nature, 8 June 2023. Thanks to Simon Pirani for the translation, the hard work, the heads-up, and his shining example of solidarity, which helps keep me going when times are tough. ||| TRR

International Children’s Day (June 1)

Important Stories • “Putin, Lvova-Belova and their crimes: how Ukrainian orphans are registered as Russians” • 31 May 2023

The Russian authorities have been removing children en masse from occupied Ukrainian territories and do not consider it a crime. But the International Criminal Court in the Hague thinks differently, accusing Vladimir Putin and Russian children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova of war crimes—namely, the illegal deportation of minors from Ukraine.

Orphans and children left without parental care have been sent all over Russia, even to the Far North. Important Stories found out how this system works and how abducted Ukrainian orphans are forcibly turned into Russian nationals.

[…]

Timecode

00:00 Why Putin and Lviv-Belova have been accused of kidnapping Ukrainian children

01:12 How 2,500 new children appeared in Russia’s database of orphans

02:32 The story of Sasha from Donetsk and his two sisters

03:56 The environment in which Ukrainian children are raised in Russia

05:23 “The children categorically refused to go to the Far North, where we live”

07:12 “The parents were killed there. The children told us terrible things”

07:48 Ukrainian orphans are provided with housing, for which Russians spend years on the waiting list

08:39 “There have never been such crimes in the history of humankind”

Source: Important Stories (YouTube), 31 May 2023. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader

SOTA • “Putin is readying young people to rebuild the army” • 31 May 2023

It won’t be possible to wage wars forever, but Putin is trying very hard. Since February 24, 2022, the lives of young people have changed. Starting in kindergarten, children are now taught that serving in the army is the best job in the world, and that the most beautiful thing in life is dying for the good of the Motherland.

[Endlessly repeat the message that] Russia is surrounded by Nazis, the whole world is against it, its soldiers are defenders, and you’re good to go. You’ve raised a whole new generation of soldiers.

This assembly line for producing soldiers has existed for several years. Even before the war, schoolchildren were inspired with imperialism and a desire to go to war. Now, however, everything has reached new levels. Military parades are organized in kindergartens. Schoolchildren are taught to dig trenches, shoot, and render first aid in combat. And university students are trained to serve in the military.

See more about how children are turned into soldiers in our new video.

Source: SOTA (YouTube), 31 May 2023. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader

A ruined building of the Burenevo Auxiliary Boarding School for Mentally Retarded Children.
Village of Burnevo, Priozersk District (Leningrad Region), 2021. Photo: Olga Matveeva/Republic

“Hello Irina Alexandrovna! This is your pupil writing to you. I decided to write to you. Please write a letter here so that they let me go on my own, whatever date you need, so that I can study from the beginning of the school year, that is, beginning September 1. Say hello to everyone at the school. When you write the letter, address it to the 11th department… Irina Alexandrovna what was the reason you sent me to the mental hospital again. I told you that I would remain at camp…”

This is an excerpt from a letter written by a pupil to the director of the Burnevo Auxiliary School for Mentally Retarded Children. I found the letter in his personal file.

In 1970, the Priozersk Sanatorium Forest School was reorganized into an auxiliary boarding school for mentally retarded children. According to the school’s fact sheet, “Forty-eight mentally retarded children studied [sic] at the school. Ten of them are disabled. All of the children are from at-risk families. Classes are held in one shift, five days a week. On weekends and holidays, ten to fifteen of them, mostly orphans, stay. There are twelve of them in the school.”

It seems that many of the pupils were not mentally retarded or disabled, but they were neglected. Sergei, a resident of the village of Burnevo, spoke to this fact: “Half of the children there were sick, while half of the healthy ones were from dysfunctional families. I attended this school until 1970, and my mother worked there as a minder.”

The school was closed in 2005 due to poor epidemiological conditions. There was only stove heating in the building, and the water was pumped from the lake. The school consisted of several buildings. In the main building there were four classrooms, a teacher’s room, a curriculum office, and the director’s office. There were sleeping quarters in a wooden building. Carpentry workshops, sewing workshops, a recreation and sports equipment room were located in separate buildings. There was also a medical unit with an isolation ward and a speech therapist’s office. There I found an archive containing the personal files of the school’s graduates.

“His grandmother telephoned. She said that her grandson was very bad, it was hard to deal him, his socks were wet and dirty. He gave a jacket to a girl, but lied to his grandmother that he had dropped it off at the laundry. At the class meeting, it was decided to refer him to the psychiatrist to prescribe treatment.”

“Slava ended up the border zone this summer: he told the border guards that he was flying in a spaceship. I had a frank talk with him. He still wants to go see his mother in Vyborg (she does not live with their family). He didn’t find her, got lost, and ended up in the border zone. Slava, smiling, told how me he deceived a border guard and a policeman. Slava was referred to a psychiatrist, who detected no abnormalities.”

“Oleg systematically wipes the dust from his bed badly. This was discussed at a class meeting. There are no results.”

“If children skip classes, they should be reported to the police without delay.”

These are quotes from pupil observation logs. Along with memos, letters, and assessments, they were kept in the students’ personal files. These records about the children were kept for years—from the first grade to graduation. Perusing them, you begin to imagine these children, how they lived, what they worried about, what they did. Their childhoods are written down in slim notebooks. You watch them grow up and go out into the world, or to a psychoneurological residential treatment facility, or to prison.

For bad behavior, children were referred to a psychiatrist and prescribed treatment. There is no data on how many orphans are placed in psychiatric clinics nowadays. The roots of what is happening in this system to this day must be sought in the past.

This project is based on archival materials and interviews with graduates of the Burnevo Auxiliary School for Mentally Retarded Children whom I managed to find.

[…]

Source: Olga Matveeva, “‘A slight degree of imbecility’: the stories of graduates of an auxiliary boarding school for mentally retarded children,” Republic, 31 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

A girl paints a pebble during an event to mark the International Children’s Day in Vladivostok, Russia, June 1, 2023. (Photo by Guo Feizhou/Xinhua)

Students from a special education school perform during an event to mark the International Children’s Day in Vladivostok, Russia, June 1, 2023. (Photo by Guo Feizhou/Xinhua)

A girl draws during an event to mark the International Children’s Day in Vladivostok, Russia, June 1, 2023. (Photo by Guo Feizhou/Xinhua)

Teachers and students in traditional attire dance during an event to mark the International Children’s Day in Vladivostok, Russia, June 1, 2023. (Photo by Guo Feizhou/Xinhua)

[…]

Source: “Int’l Children’s Day marked around world,” Xinhua, 1 June 2023

Shameless

“Underwear and swimsuits from 900 rubles.” An image from a circular I got this morning from Russian online retailer Ozon

We are not ashamed

I’ve been doing my favorite thing for almost the whole month—hanging out with ordinary Russians, not only in Moscow, but also in the regions—in my capacity as a sociologist, via focus groups. Ten random people are brought together, and we sit and simply talk “about life,” and I’m among them with a dictaphone. It’s the best format, and ordinary folk like it too.

Naturally, I was curious about people’s opinions about what was happening: their reactions were very different, expressing a whole range of emotions. In most cases, people sense the crisis, and they complain especially about prices… Although then they cheer up and say that “life is livable.” Some even argue that this is not a crisis, but that there are “certain crisis phenomena.” However, after thinking about it, they usually said that it would get worse; this is the easy part now, they said.

I won’t describe everything they said, because I want to get to the main point, the horrible point.

People voiced a variety of emotions (and I carefully monitor them: focus groups are not so much about information as about feelings, about which events excite people more): despair, apathy, depression, anger, patriotic enthusiasm, complacency, and braggadocio… Some still “believe in victory,” some already have doubts, but most are unable to articulate what “victory” would look like… But one emotion—and I conducted more than a dozen focus groups both in Moscow and in the back of beyond—was practically absent, manifested by no one.

I’m talking about shame. There was “we’ve been betrayed,” or “we can still win,” or even “we shouldn’t have started it at all,” but there was no shame. And this, in my opinion, is a very bad symptom, showing that society has not even started down the road to recovery yet. And it may well happen that they will lose and fall face first in the mud, but will still not understand a thing.

This is sad. I’m not trying to show off my own “moral rectitude.” I don’t claim to have it, of course: I’m just as much a bastard as my dear compatriots. My claim is purely pragmatic: if we are still not ashamed, it means that for the time being we are a long ways away from the only emotion that gives us a chance at rebirth—horror towards ourselves. While everyone continues to justify themselves (even if by citing their own weakness: “What can I do?”), the cart won’t budge an inch.

We know that no one ever feels sorry for anyone in Russia. We have always known this, and we didn’t need Sergey Shnurov to tell us that. But the complete absence of shame, and in its place, again, this incredibly vulgar self-pity, pity for us poor unfortunates, “the whole world is against us,” is still quite eye-opening. You listen to how enthusiastically folks pity the “Russian people,” and all you can do is feel gobsmacked. They screwed up completely, betrayed everyone, they are up to their elbows in blood, they can’t do anything, they don’t know how to do anything – but no, they don’t feel even a smidgen of shame.

Nothing’s going to change their minds. Indeed, this, apparently, is the Russian people’s principal tragedy.

Source: Alexei Roshchin (Facebook), 29 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Julia Arkhipova for the heads-up.

I learned from reposts that a very young man, Evheny Osievsky, has died defending Bakhmut.

I didn’t know him at all, but for some reason I went to his page.

In the trenches he was reading Pynchon. He loved Lou Reed and Bob Fosse.

I would so like to have talked to him (if he would have agreed).

Pain and rage.

Evheny Osievsky April 12 · A book impressively unsuitable for reading in the army. But what difference does it make if “In each case the change from point to no-point carries a luminosity and enigma at which something in us must leap and sing, or withdraw in fright. Watching the A4 pointed at the sky—just before the last firing-switch closes—watching that singular point at the very top of the Rocket, where the fuse is… Do all these points imply, like the Rocket’s, an annihilation? What is that, detonating in the sky above the cathedral? beneath the edge of the razor, under the rose?”

Source: Anna Narinskaya (Facebook), 29 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

HBO and Russian streaming service Amediateka have made sure that wartime Russians are au courant when it comes to prestige television, as illustrated by this image from a circular I found in my mailbox the other day.

[…]

After witnessing the country’s crackdown on opposition activists and independent journalism — and the prosecution of hundreds of people who do not support the war or President Vladimir Putin — many emigres expect to encounter a dystopia when they arrive in Russia.

The reality is more banal.

“It’s corny, but the first thing that caught my eye after returning was that Twitter and Instagram don’t work without a VPN,” said Yulia, referring to Russia’s wartime ban on several foreign social media sites.

“Moscow bars were packed with visitors even on Monday evenings,” added the 25-year-old screenwriter who returned in April after fleeing to Georgia last year.

“Recently, my friend and I went out for a glass of wine. All the tables were occupied.”

[…]

Source: Kirill Ponomarev: “‘Almost Nothing Had Changed’: Anti-War Russians Risk First Trips Home Since Invasion,” Moscow Times, 28 May 2023

You Went Away

A gravestone at El Carmelo Cemetery, Pacific Grove, California, 25 May 2023. Photo by the Russian Reader

Everyone I know who has left [Russia] has improved their circumstances by leaving. I understand that mine is a biased sample, but it is still a sample. One young woman recently said it to me outright: “Things have got better for all of us because of the war. And that scares me.”

We are beneficiaries of the war, me included. I have started earning more money. I live in a great place, better than where I lived in Moscow. Everyone respects me, which was unheard of in Moscow, and sometimes they even recognize me on the streets. Every day something good happens to me: new projects, interviews, interesting encounters. And I’ve generally started feeling better. I have become calmer, kinder, more confident in myself, and I smile more often.

And all because the war is underway.

It scares me to admit it, but sometimes I think: if only it had started fifteen years earlier, when I was younger and I had more vim and vigor. Would it have been to hard for them to arrange? How wonderful my life would have turned out then.

I realized this back in 2014, when I spoke with people who had gone to fight in Donbas completely voluntarily. Yes, of course, there were ideological idiots among. Some were in it for the money. But many honestly admitted that there was nothing else for them to do. Life had become meaningless and hopeless: TV, vodka, the wife. Life was boring, there were no prospects. They had to raise the stakes, and so they went to war.

I was like that myself. In 2014, I worked at a terrible dreary job. My personal life had come to a dead end. I felt that what mattered most in life was happening somewhere other than where I was, and I was just rotting where I was. It was like Groundhog Day, like being in a sludge which you can not get out. Everything was unreal, inauthentic, imaginary. And so I went to report in Donbas, because I knew for sure that that was reality. It didn’t matter what kind of reality, but whatever it was, it was the real thing.

And suddenly everything fell into place. I am a feckless, indecisive person, poorly adapted to life. But suddenly, in the midst of war, I felt that I was in my element. I knew exactly what to do, I had no doubts, I took responsibility. And everything panned out for me, something I wouldn’t have dared to dream of in peacetime. But why was war just the ticket?

There was even a fire in my belly. I thought: there is a chance for people like me in this mess, in this chaos. Now I’m going to show you assholes just like—you’ll dance to my tune. You had me all wrong…

It sounds nice, but there’s something despicable about it.

So did all those failed poets, provincial schoolteachers, and hairdressers with cosmic-scale ambitions who in 1917 posed for pretty photographs and then engaged in mass executions. That’s how history is made. And then they were shot themselves.

And it also eliminates the need for choice. Oh, how easy it is to make decisions when there is no other choice! Can’t make up your mind? It’s okay, the course of things will choose for you. “The coercive force of reality,” as Babel said. Force majeure, as they say in the courts.

In December 2022, I had good papers made for myself, and so now I can move freely around the world. And my first thought was: that’s it, now I’m going to Kyiv. From there I’ll go to Odesa and Kharkiv. I know how it’s done. I have to go. I won’t forgive myself later if I don’t go, so off I go!

But I didn’t go. I wasn’t able to double dare myself. I couldn’t explain to myself why I had to go to the war and what I would do there. I already have a different life from the one I led in Moscow. I don’t need to compensate, to show my worth in a particular way, to prove anything to myself. I think I’m recovering, I’m getting better.

“Have you read the news? What a beautiful article you could write!” a friend recently wrote to me. “Come on, have a whack at it! It would be a powerful move!”

I texted him: “Go fuck yourself!”

But another person wrote: “We have a problem here. Can you…” I answered briefly: “Yes, I’ll do it.”

I’m recovering, but I’m not quite recovered yet.

P.S. For those who are outraged by the first sentence.

I lived badly in Russia, I had nothing to lose. So yes, my life has improved. Everything is relative.

You had been living well, apparently, and now you are experiencing difficulties trying to restore your previous standard of living. That’s also the way the ball bounces. I hate everything about the way things were. I wouldn’t want things to be like they were before.

Source: Yan Shenkman (Facebook), 26 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Ultra Bra, “Sinä lähdit pois” (“You Went Away,” 1997)

In the wee hours neither of us can party anymore
In the wee hours neither of us can party anymore
Tired gazes, hoarse voices
In the background a sun that doesn’t warm
In the background a sun that doesn’t warm

You went away
From the balcony I watched
Your receding back
You skirted the puddles
And I guess you won’t regret this parting

All the birds in the bushes sing before seven in the morning
All the birds in the bushes sing before seven in the morning
Tired gazes, hoarse voices
In the background a sun that doesn’t warm
In the background a sun that doesn’t warm

You went away
From the balcony I watched
Your receding back
You skirted the puddles
And I guess you won’t regret this parting, parting

The night’s last drink
Turns into breakfast
To which I added coffee

You went away
From the balcony I watched
Your receding back
You skirted the puddles
And I guess you won’t regret this parting

You went away
From the balcony I watched
Your receding back
You skirted the puddles
And I guess you won’t regret this parting, parting, parting

Source: Genius. Translated from the Finnish by the Russian Reader

KYIV, May 29 (Reuters) — Explosions rang out across Kyiv on Monday as Russia launched its 16th air attack on the Ukrainian capital this month, hours after unleashing dozens of missiles and drones overnight.

Panicked residents, some of whom initially ignored the air raid siren as they ate breakfast in cafes, rushed for cover when the sky filled with smoke trails and blast clouds.

All the Russian missiles were shot down, but one person in the central Podil district was taken to hospital, authorities said. No major damage was reported.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions sounded in the capital’s central districts and emergency services were dispatched.

“The attack on Kyiv continues. Don’t leave the shelters!” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine shot down 11 cruise and ballistic missiles fired in the second of Monday’s attacks on Kyiv, said Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Heavy air strikes about six hours earlier had targeted the capital, put five Ukrainian aircraft out of action in the west of the country and caused a fire in the Black Sea port of Odesa.

“I would say there has been an activisation, a serious activisation… there are fewer missiles flying, but the regularity of strikes has increased,” said air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat.

Russia’s main targets are typically stocks of Western weapons, energy facilities and government buildings, but the fact the missiles over Kyiv were shot down made it difficult to establish their target on Monday, he said.

Russia has increased the frequency of air attacks as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive.

Kyiv metro stations were packed with people taking shelter although many residents ignored the air raid alarm until they heard loud blasts in city centre.

A local television report from a junction on a busy highway showed missile wreckage that appeared to have hit a traffic light.

Source: Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder, “Russia launches 16th air strike on Kyiv this month,” Reuters, 29 May 2023

[…]

Just two of the soldiers who were rebuilding the machine-gun nest had been with the battalion since Kherson. One of them, a twenty-nine-year-old construction worker called Bison—because he was built like one—had been hospitalized three times: after being shot in the shoulder, after being wounded by shrapnel in the ankle and knee, and after being wounded by shrapnel in the back and arm. The other veteran, code-named Odesa, had enlisted in the Army in 2015, after dropping out of college. Short and stocky, he had the same serene deportment as Bison. The uncanny extent to which both men had adapted to their lethal environment underscored the agitation of the recent arrivals, who flinched whenever something whistled overhead or crashed nearby.

“I only trust Bison,” Odesa said. “If the new recruits run away, it will mean immediate death for us.” He’d lost nearly all his closest friends in Kherson. Taking out his phone, he swiped through a series of photographs: “Killed . . . killed . . . killed . . . killed . . . killed . . . wounded. . . . Now I have to get used to different people. It’s like starting over.”

Because the high attrition rate had disproportionately affected the bravest and most aggressive soldiers—a phenomenon that one officer called “reverse natural selection”—seasoned infantrymen like Odesa and Bison were extremely valuable and extremely fatigued. After Kherson, Odesa had gone awol. “I was in a bad place psychologically,” he said. “I needed a break.” After two months of resting and recuperating at home, he came back. His return was prompted not by a fear of being punished—what were they going to do, put him in the trenches?—but by a sense of loyalty to his dead friends. “I felt guilty,” he said. “I realized that my place was here.”

[…]

Source: Luke Mogelson, “Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine,” New Yorker, 22 May 2023

The Sasha Skochilenko Trial: Olga Safonova’s “Slightly Misleading” Expert Analysis

Sasha Skochilenko (center) at her criminal trial in Petersburg, 25 May 2023. Photo: Nadezhda Skochilenko

At today’s hearing [in Sasha Skochilenko’s criminal trial on charges of disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian army], Sasha’s defense lawyers and Svetlana Drugoveyko-Dolzhanskaya, a linguist who conducted an independent forensic examination and found no knowingly false information in Sasha’s messages, were able to question one of the authors of the linguistic forensic examination [commissioned by the prosecution].

Olga Safonova, a specialist in political science (!), was enlisted to contribute to the linguistic forensic examination. But, as she was instructed to do by a staff member at the forensics expertise center, she evaluated whether what was written [on the anti-war “price tags” that Ms. Skochilenko is alleged to have posted in a Petersburg supermarket] was in line with the Russian Defense Ministry’s position, not whether it was truthful.

[Safonova] admitted that her analysis of one of the messages was “slightly misleading.” She was “at a loss” when asked to respond to the assertion that Sasha faces up to ten years in prison on the basis of such misleading conclusions, among other things.

After a recess (due to her heart problems, Sasha found it difficult to endure the stuffiness and lack of water), the examination of the witness was continued by Drugoveyko-Dolzhanskaya. Safonova was forced to admit that among the sources against which she checked Sasha’s messages, only the Defense Ministry’s website corresponded to her own definition of an official source — unlike the website Life.ru and anonymous Telegram channels. She also could not answer a school curriculum-level question about impersonal sentences, although their erroneous definition in the forensic examination is one of the “proofs” of Sasha’s guilt.

In addition to pointing out the errors in the forensic examination and its noncompliance with government standards, Drugoveyko-Dolzhanskaya recalled that, according to the Justice Ministry’s methodological recommendations, when an expert strays beyond their area of professional competence, it is a procedural error and is inadmissible [as evidence in court]. Safonova was forced to agree. Drugoveyko-Dolzhanskaya followed this up by asking a direct question: “Can you, as an expert, prove conclusively that Skochilenko knowingly falsified information?”

Safonova replied that she could not.

The new prosecutor abruptly interrupted her and requested that the hearing be postponed.

You can come out and support Sasha at 11:30 a.m on June 13. Many thanks to everyone who continues to attend the trial, shares information about the case, and donates money to pay the lawyers and buy food and medicine care packages! You can help Sasha financially here:

+79627117055

(Sofia S., Sberbank)

5469550065976075

(Sberbank)

Source: Nadezhda Skochilenko (Facebook), 25 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. The details for donating money to Ms. Skochilenko’s defense fund are only for people based in Russia.

[…]

Olga Safonova. Photo courtesy of The Village

In the late 1990s, St. Petersburg State University, for reasons unknown, gave away one of its dormitories on Vasilievsky Island — 10 Bering Street — with a two-story attic built on. Later, one of the university’s vice-rectors regretfully claimed that if the building had not been given away, the university would have had room to house over 500 students. Today, the building houses apartments (a three-bedroom flat there will run you 20 million rubles) and offices. It is owned by the Bering-10 Condominium Association, whose chair is Olga Diomidovna Safonova. She has the exact same name as an associate professor in the Faculty of Political Science at St. Petersburg State University.

Safonova has been involved as an expert witness in the criminal cases against [Petersburg anti-war protesters] Victoria Petrova, Sasha Skochilenko, and Vsevolod Korolev. They face up to ten years in prison if convicted. These are quotations from the expert analysis in the case against Victoria Petrova:

“Objective facts indicate that the war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine have not been committed by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, but by the Kiev regime and the armed formations controlled by it.”

“The practical intent and purpose of the statements under examination [i.e., Victoria Petrova’s posts] consists in generating false ideas among readers (listeners) that the actions of the Russian federal leadership are condemned by society, as manifested by the threat of the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and against European countries. […] In the materials submitted for examination, the negative assessment of the policy of Russian federal state bodies vis-a-vis their deployment of Russian federal armed forces to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens and maintain international peace and security, is not supported by arguments and evidence.”

Safonova graduated first from St. Petersburg State University’s law faculty, then from its philology faculty. In 2005, she defended her dissertation in political science. Here is a quote from the abstract: “Social deprivation has become a characteristic feature of the lifestyle of a significant portion of the Russian populace. A drop in the level of real monetary income has entailed increased competition for survival, thereby generating an increase in the stratum of people whose intentions have become criminal, i.e., unlawful.”

At least until the mid-2010s, Safonova led an active social life. The Village found the academic’s picture in a dozen photo reportages from different parties, as published by Sobaka.ru and Geometria. Here she is at a presentation by the jewelry house Freywille; here, at the (now-closed) restaurant Gusto’s birthday party; and here, at the opening of XXXX Baltika Brew.

The Village spoke about Safonova with graduates of various faculties at St. Petersburg State University: their assessments of her were contradictory. Journalist Anastasia Romanova, who took Safonova’s lecture course on political science, remembered her as “the toughest teacher, whose pass-fail exam was very hard to pass.” “She honestly read the whole class the riot act,” said Romanova. “It was very scary to go to her.” Emile, a graduate of the political science faculty, where Safonova taught a course on law, recalls, on the contrary, that “the course was a formality,” and “at some point that woman just disappeared.” It was one of the easiest subjects to pass,” he said.

In 2012, commenting to Delovoi Peterburg on the newly adopted law on foreign agents, Safonova said, “There are many organizations that, under plausible pretexts, are engaged in near-subversive activities. We as a state should be concerned about this, and it’s good that this issue has been addressed.”

“I remember that Safonova gave what I thought were absurd descriptions of the political regimes in other countries. She said there was no democracy anywhere. It seems to me that most students found her unpleasant both as a teacher and as an apologist for the regime. A couple of days ago, a classmate sent me an article in Rotunda about her involvement in the expert analysis [in the case of Victoria Petrova]. I wasn’t surprised,” says Emile. Romanova adds, “She didn’t give the impression of being a stupid person. Arrogant, yes. I think she understands perfectly well what is happening now.”

[…]

Source: Julia Galkina, “Meet the experts who help jail anti-war protesters in Petersburg. They teach at St. Petersburg State University,” The Village, 14 March 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

The Price of “Treason” Is 2,500 Rubles: The Case of Tamara Parshina

Tamara Parshina
Photo courtesy of the BBC via Activatica

A Khabarovsk woman, detained in March on suspicion of treason for financing the Ukrainian armed forces, has been identified by BBC journalists as twenty-three-year-old Tamara Parshina. Parshina’s initials and surname appeared in a judicial database in late April, when her term of detention was extended at the FSB’s request.

Parshina graduated from the Far Eastern State University of Railway Engineering (DVGUPS) with a degree in information systems and information technologies. Prior to that, the accused studied at the prep school on Leningrad Street, which was also where she was detained. The young woman was employed at the Khabarovsk Regional Compulsory Health Insurance Fund.

After Parshina’s arrest, there were rumors that she was an activist in the I Am/We Are Furgal movement. However, the regular attendees of the pickets in support of ex-regional governor Sergei Furgal said that no one they knew had been arrested in the case. Furgal’s headquarters called the claim that the detainee was an activist in the movement an attempt to discredit it.

The attorney Kaloy Akhilgov reported that Parshina had donated a total of 2,500 rubles [approx. 29 euros] in small amounts to various Ukrainian charitable foundations. She is currently in custody at Moscow’s Lefortovo remand prison.

Parshina is the youngest person so far detained on suspicion of treason in Russia. She faces up to twenty years in prison if convicted. The toughening of the punishment for treason occurred after Parshina’s arrest. Also, women are not given life sentences in Russia: the maximum sentence for women is twenty-five years.

Source: “Khabarovsk woman arrested for treason identified,” Activatica, 13 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Olga Mazurova for the heads-up.

“The FSB has detained a Khabarovsk woman, an activist in the I Am/We Are Furgal movement, on suspicion of treason for financing the Ukrainian armed forces, the FSB’s public relations office has told us. Criminal charges have been filed. Video footage courtesy of Russian Federal Security Service Public Relations Office.” Source: TASS (Telegram), 13 March 2023

In March, the FSB began accusing Russians of providing financial assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces and charging them with treason. The BBC has discovered that 36-year-old Nina Slobodchikova from Novosibirsk was the first to be detained, followed by 23-year-old Tamara Parshina from Khabarovsk (who is the youngest Russian woman so far accused of treason). Both women were employed in the IT field before their arrests. One of them has relatives in Ukraine.

Two men in camouflage walk briskly, skirting snowdrifts, down a snow-covered sidewalk. They chase down and grab a young woman in a light-colored down jacket carrying a small bag. Her face has been blurred: only a strand of hair that has escaped from under her cap is visible. She is confused and crying. Something falls from her hands to the ground; one of the men picks it up and says, “Calm down.” The girl is bundled into a black minibus with tinted windows.

This is video footage shot by the FSB. In the next scene, the detainee, now carrying a backpack, enters the FSB’s Khabarovsk Territory offices, escorted by security forces officers. She is then seen being led up the gangway of an Aeroflot Boeing 777 named in honor of Marshal of the USSR Vasily Chuikov. The sign above the airport reads “Khabarovsk.” At the end of the video, the young woman disembarks from the plane at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. In the final shots, she is led through the courtyard of Lefortovo remand prison. Her hands are cuffed behind her back.

The video appeared in the media on March 13, the same day the FSB reported that it had detained a Khabarovsk woman on suspicion of treason for financially aiding the Ukrainian army. The BBC was told by the Lefortov court that pretrial restraints had been imposed on Parshina on March 9 in Khabarovsk. According to information obtained on the website Flightradar24, the Chuikov Boeing flew to Moscow around three o’clock in the afternoon on March 9.

[…]

The BBC tracked down classmates and acquaintances of 23-year-old Tamara Parshina on social media. One of them recognized the young woman in the video released by FSB. “Those are her sneakers,” she said. “And she seems to be sobbing too. I remember because she often cried at school. The hair is curly, like hers. She also wore glasses.” Her description matches photos of Parshina on social media.

Parshina’s friends do not know the exact nature of the charges against her. “It seems that she donated money last spring [in 2022] to some organization that helps someone in Ukraine,” an acquaintance of the young woman wrote to the BBC. Parshina’s mother declined to speak with the BBC about her daughter.

The FSB reported that the young woman was detained on Leningrad Street in Khabarovsk “near the train station.” According to a friend, [that was a coincidence]: she merely lived in the neighborhood. Leningrad Street is also the location of the prep school that Parshina attended and where she won academic competitions. [I was unable to access this link from my computer — TRR.]

In 2021, Parshina graduated from the Far Eastern State University of Railway Engineering (DVGUPS) with a degree in information systems and information technologies. “Novice web developer […] looking for remote work, but would also consider relocating,” she wrote about herself on LinkedIn.

After graduating from university, the young woman worked at the Khabarovsk Regional Compulsory Health Insurance Fund, said a former university classmate.

Friends of Parshina with whom the BBC spoke had lost contact with her in the winter. “[In February] some friend of hers wrote to me: he was also looking for her. I wrote to her wherever I could, but she didn’t reply to me,” one of them said. Another friend of Parshina from a group in which they played board games together claims that Parshina had not been in touch with him since late January.

The FSB alleged that Parshina was “an activist in the ‘I Am/We Are Furgal’ movement.” With this as their slogan, thousands of the region’s residents protested in support of ex-governor Sergei Furgal after his arrest [on murder charges] in the summer of 2020. In February of this year, Furgal was sentenced to 22 years in prison. According to the FSB, the Khabarovsk woman, motivated, allegedly, by “political hatred and enmity,” donated money to the Ukrainian armed forces for the purchase of weapons, ammunition, and uniforms. Now she is housed in the same Moscow prison as Furgal.

Parshina’s friends were not aware of her protest activities. “To be honest, I don’t think she was involved in that,” a former university classmate told the BBC. “I know that she was subscribed to various environmental activists and feminists on Instagram.”

Six months before his arrest, Furgal paid a visit to DVGUPS, where Parshina was studying at that time. There were many students in attendance, and the Khabarovsk Territory government published a report about the visit on its website. [This website seems to be blocked to users outside Russia — TRR.] Parshina is not in any of the photos of this event.

On March 13, Khabarovsk regional MP Sergei Bezdenezhnykh, a Furgal ally, wrote on his Telegram channel that “none of the I Am/We Are Furgal activists recognized the detainee.”

“As a member of the Furgal team, I can say that she has nothing to do with us. I have the sense that certain forces want to link financing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the ex-governor’s name. The movement is not official, it is not registered anywhere. First and foremost, it is an indefinitely large group of people,” Bezdenezhnykh wrote. The Furgal team, he claims, supports Russia, not Ukraine.

The FSB alleges that Parshina donated “personal funds” to the Armed Forces of Ukraine on grounds of “political hatred and enmity,” without specifying at whom these feelings of hers were directed.

It was this motive that the Khabarovsk Regional Court had previously ruled an aggravating circumstance in another treason case. In the autumn of 2022, it sentenced Vyacheslav Mamukov to twelve and a half years in a maximum-security penal colony for, allegedly, attempting to sell information on the design of thirty Russian bridges to the Ukrainian special services.

[…]

Source: Sergei Goryashko and Ksenia Churmanova, “‘I want peace, to hug my mother, and to walk around Kyiv’: two stories of Russian women accused by FSB of financing the Ukrainian army,” BBC News Russian Service, 11 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Nikita Tushkanov: “I Will Not Change My Stance”

Nikita Tushkanov (above left), in the cage at his trial. Photo courtesy of RFE/RL

Nikita Tushkanov, 29, a history teacher from the town of Mikun in the Komi Republic, has been sentenced to five and a half years in a medium-security penal colony on charges of “repeatedly discrediting” [the Russian army] and “condoning terrorism” over posts and comments he made on the VKontakte social network. It took the court about nine hours to consider all the evidence in the criminal case and render its verdict. Sever.Realii takes a look at the trial and the basis of the prosecution’s case.

The criminal trial against Nikita Tushkanov, a 29-year-old historian and history and social studies teacher from the Komi Republic, ended with this brief closing statement by the defendant:

“I think we know the verdict in advance. So I cannot influence the decisions you make with my closing statement. I will not change my stance on the events in Ukraine. Moreover, I condemn them and consider them criminal. At the outset of the hearing, I asked for a recusal. It was not granted, of course. In this regard, I would like to say that I don’t want to ask you for justice, but I can’t ask you for mercy.”

The next day, a judge with the Second Western District Military Court sentenced Tushkanov to five and a half years in a medium-security penal colony over a post and several comments published on VKontakte about the war in Ukraine and the explosion on the Crimean Bridge on 8 October 2022, which the Russian authorities have declared a terrorist attack. Essentially, the judge needed only a single working day, 10 May, to review the evidence and testimony and reach a verdict. Nikita’s relatives, who were witnesses in the case, were not allowed to attend the first half of the hearing, at which the findings of a forensic examination were read into the record.

“A birthday gift for Putler”

The criminal case against Nikita Tushkanov was launched in December 2022. He was initially accused only of “condoning terrorism” over a post about the bomb blast on the Crimean Bridge, but subsequently he was also charged with “repeated discrediting” of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, also over posts he made on VKontakte.

[…]

The Russian authorities declared the blast on the Crimean Bridge a terrorist attack a day after the incident. The entries on Nikita Tushkanov’s social media page were made on 8 October, the day of the blast, when the incident had not yet been declared a terrorist attack.

Tushkanov was arrested in early December 2022. He later recounted that the police had been monitoring his VKontakte page for several months before the criminal case was launched. He had been written up on administrative charges of “discrediting the army” over social media posts.

The accusations were triggered by a post that read, “A birthday present for Putler. Grandpa turned 70 years old. The last anniversary of the last shithead. P.S. The Crimean Bridge was blown up today. De jure, the Ukrainians have destroyed their own bridge, what psychos…,” and discussions of the events in the comments to this post.

What other phrases were cited in the case against Nikita Tushkanov?

In addition to the post about the blast on the Crimean Bridge, the evidence in the case included comments that Tushkanov made beneath the post. Among the comments that were entered into evidence were the following (the original spelling and punctuation have been preserved — SR):

“Desktop photo for phone”

“Crimea was annexed (if you understand such words at all)”

“It’s delightful that the aggressor is getting f*****”

“My country carries out terrorist attacks by attacking peaceful cities in Ukraine. Any more questions?”

“Maybe you consider yourself a part of this state. I don’t. I didn’t elect this president, the government, and all the rest of it. My homeland has been seized by fascists and I don’t consider myself a part of it”

“How is it a terrorist attack? I don’t understand. Destroying the infrastructure and a symbol of Putin’s Russia, that’s a terrorist attack?”

“For what people? Ukraine did not ask [Russia] to build a bridge on its own land”

“Should we be sad?”

“Putin annexed the occupied territories”

“That’s what the ‘partial’ deadening mobilization does!”

“I *** didn’t get it, but it’s very interesting. What information? They weren’t annexed? Or were there no armed people there while the ‘referendum’ was going on? What’s wrong? Are the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation beating the **** out of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Then why the mobilization? And what about ‘Z Power of PraVda’?”

The criminal case against Tushkanov was based on a forensic examination conducted by an expert from the Federal Security Service’s Komi Republic office. During the trial, Tushkanov asked the expert to explain how “discrediting” differs from ordinary criticism. The expert replied that discrediting involves creating a negative image, while criticism involves making suggestions to rectify a situation.

In the forensic examination itself, the expert found that there was no evidence in Tushkanov’s posts of his calling for the blast, but there were “signs of acknowledging the ideology and practice of perpetrating the blast that warranted support and imitation” and “discrediting” the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

The expert detected condoning of terrorism in the phrase about the “gift”: the word “gift” and the phrase “the Ukrainians destroyed their own bridge,” constituted, according to the expert, an attempt to condone the blast.

The purpose of the word “Putler,” according to the expert, was to “destabilize the activities of the authorities of the Russian Federation or impact their decision-making.”

The comment “Desktop photo” constituted “a positive assessment of the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, voiced as a desire to save” the picture.

The expert also detected justification for the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in the phrase “my homeland has been seized by fascists”: it was “expressed by the justification for the explosion: ‘My homeland has been seized by fascists’ (exploding the bridge is a response to the fact that the Russian Federation has been seized by fascists).”

The FSB expert also found evidence of discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Tushkanov’s comments about the annexation of the occupied territories, “the deadening mobilization,” and armed people during the “referendums” on annexation of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

Tushkanov’s relatives and his close friends were also questioned in court. They described Tushkanov positively and said that they had not touched on political topics in personal conversations.

Nikita Tushkanov. Photo courtesy of the Moscow Times

Testifying in court, Tushkanov again stressed that he had not renounced his comments and did not understand how he could be tried for condoning terrorism if his post had been published a day before the Russian authorities declared the explosion on the Crimean Bridge a terrorist attack. Here is a complete transcript of Tushkanov’s testimony:

I, Nikita Alexeyevich Tushkanov, date of birth 24 April 1994, was born and grew up in the small village of Chuprovo in Komi’s Udora District. My mother was a teacher and, later, the director of the school, while my father was the director of the House of Culture. My grandmother was a home-front worker and the daughter of a frontline soldier who was killed in the fight against Nazism on 1 January 1945 and was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Grandfather was the son of an exiled kulak from Voroshilovgrad (Luhansk), and his mother had been denounced by a neighbor and subjected to political persecution.

I grew up in this environment. From childhood I learned about the horrors of war and the horror of losing parents, through the tears of my grandmother and my grandfather I knew how hard it was for the children of victims of political persecution to live.

With this knowledge and a sense of duty, I joined a search party in 2013 and until 2019 was involved in searching for unburied soldiers and officers of the Winter War of 1939–40 and the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 and reburying them with full military honors.

I loved my homeland and continue to love it, but my love changed due to the way my country, Russia, has behaved towards its own citizens (including veterans, leaving them on the sidelines of life, without assistance) and in the international arena.

I used to see no difference between the concepts of “State” and “Homeland,” but now they are absolutely opposed concepts for me. How did this happen?

It all started in 2014, and not with the annexation of Crimea, which I accepted, as did the majority of the [Russian] populace. It all started with combat involving unidentified military units in which my comrades served. They told me firsthand about what went on there and who did what.

Strelkov (Girkin) […] has himself admitted on numerous occasions that he, a former FSB officer, “pressed the button that launched the war.” This was followed by the downing of Flight MH-17 and the emergence in Russian territory of fresh graves for soldiers and military personnel from the “they aren’t there” echelon. Since 2014, my State has supported the separatists and thrown more and more victims into the furnace of war.

[…]

We have had to pay for it all. Sanctions were imposed, and the so-called pension reform was carried out, but they simply confiscated the populace’s hard-earned money. They froze the invested part of pensions, raised the VAT, and much more. In the name of what?

It’s not the sea that drowns people, but the puddle.

I was baffled by the building of the Crimean Bridge. Didn’t we have other places where bridges needed to be built? There were thousands of possible places for this. But [they built the bridge] on territory that Ukraine recognizes as its own, as does the entire international community.

The Russian authorities called construction of the bridge a “historic mission,” one of the key tasks in the “final unification of Crimea and Russia.” Meanwhile, people’s salaries were not paid on time, and roads and bridges fell into disrepair. Why weren’t we building bridges to Sakhalin?

While still engaged in searches [for WWII soldiers still missing in action], I realized that war was pretty only at parades and musters, but in fact it was only DEATH and those whose remains I carried out of forests, fields, and swamps could tell the whole truth about war. Only the dead and the maimed know the truth about war! War is a crime, and unleashing it is a crime for which there is no justification.

The Anschluss of Austria took place in the same way as [Russia’s] “reunification” with Crimea. My state unleashed a war in Ukraine in 2014, and in February 2022, led by the President, it unleashed a full-scale war while simultaneously ensnarling the whole world by unleashing a world war, the third world war. It was my state that doomed tens of thousands of people to death and doomed millions to suffering. And the so-called special military operation has been going on for more than a year.

And now I am charged with violating two articles of the Russian Federal Criminal Code.

Article 205.2.2

I should say that I reject terrorism. I do not approve of acts of terrorism, and I regard them only negatively, no matter who commits them. I have not made calls for terrorist attacks, and I have never sought to condone their goals.

The Russian authorities allegedly declared on 8 October that the damage that had occurred on the Crimean Bridge was a terrorist act, but the media reported this only on the evening of 9 October, and the President of the Russian Federation himself did not refer to the damage to the bridge as a terrorist attack in his initial comments. Information about the terrorist attack also appeared on the [web] page of the Russian Investigative Committee in the late afternoon of 9 October.

The [social media] post in question [in the case against Tushkanov] was published on 8 October at 10:04 a.m. Moscow Time. I could not have foreseen the fact that the damage to the bridge, a military target, would be declared a terrorist attack.

From the very launch of the (auto and rail) bridge, it was used by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, including during preparations for the 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. There were relevant publications on this topic, the use of the bridge (logically) as military infrastructure. The bridge is part of the military logistics chain for supplying the Southern Grouping of Troops in the war with Ukraine.

Thus, the damaging of the bridge as a facility used for military purposes (i.e., the transport of equipment, missiles, personnel, and provisions) cannot be declared a terrorist attack, just as is the case with all military facilities that are fair targets for damage and/or destruction. The sinking of the warship Moskva was thus also a “terrorist attack,” judging by the rationale of the Russian authorities.

Despite the fact that terrorism and acts of terrorism pursue clear goals of generating publicity and pressure [on their targets], no one has claimed responsibility for the incident on the bridge, no terrorist organization has made demands, and there have been no statements [of responsibility].

It was an act of sabotage, targeting a site that is still used for military purposes. So I thought at the time [when I published my social media post] and I still think so to this day. But it was in no way an act of terrorism.

Ukraine considers Crimea its own territory and is in the active phase of hostilities, which also points to the fact that [the attack on the Crimean Bridge] was and is an instance of sabotage.

In any military action, bridges are key targets for disrupting the logistics and supplying of enemy troops, as illustrated by the famous “rail wars” on the Berezina River during the Second World War and in this “special military operation,” which has been going on for over a year. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation blew up and destroyed bridges in the Novomoskovsk District of the Dnipropetrovsk Region (22 April 2022), the Preobrazhensky Bridge in Zaporizzhia, and other bridges even BEFORE the incident on the Crimean Bridge.

In any war, bridges are key supply routes for armies, such as the bridges blown up by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and the bridges under the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that have been attacked by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But while accusing Ukraine of engaging in terrorism by sabotaging the Crimean Bridge, the Russian authorities have continuously launched more than 18,000 missile strikes on Ukraine and, according to the Ukrainian authorities, 97% of those strikes targeted civilian sites, including (just to mention a few) Kyiv thermal power plant no. 5, Zmiivska thermal power plant, Kharkhiv thermal power plant no. 5, Burshtyn thermal power plant, and so on.

In response to the attacks on the Dnieper and the Kremenchuk hydroelectric stations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the bombing of civilian infrastructure was a response to a strike by Ukrainian drones on ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Fifty of [Ukraine’s] energy infrastructure has been damaged, and attacks continue, rendering cities literally uninhabitable.

These strikes did not affect the supplying of weapons and other materiel to the front. They affected such critical [civilian] infrastructure as heating, water supply, and healthcare.

And all of the above attacks on civilian targets took place before the attack on the Crimean Bridge. Who committed a terrorist attack after that?

When I published my post on the explosion on the Crimean Bridge I regarded it as damage to a military target. And I regarded the country [allegedly responsible for the sabotage], a country which is under direct attack from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as involved in a war, as indicated in [my] comments to the text.

According to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, public condoning of terrorism constitutes a crime from the moment it is disseminated. [My] post was published on 8 October at 10:04 a.m., while the media reported the declaration of the incident as an act of terrorism on the evening of 9 October 2023.

Article 280.3.1

The concept of “discrediting” the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is not specified anywhere and is not substantiated. There is no such concept in the case files or the indictment, and it is absent in regulatory acts.

As for the “maintenance of international peace,” after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Russia was subjected to sanctions that caused great damage to many of its economic structures, and caused many manufacturers to exit the Russian market.

According to the international community, the main purpose of the strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid was the desire to sow fear among the populace and make people’s lives unbearable!

As a result of this “defense of its own interests and its citizens,” Russia has turned into a worse scarecrow than Afghanistan.

On May 22, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declared Russia a terrorist state.

On August 2, 2022, the Saeima of Latvia declared Russia a sponsor of terrorism.

On October 13 (after the bombing and destruction of a portion of the Ukrainian power grid), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared the Russian government a terrorist regime.

On October 18, Estonia declared the Russian Federation a state sponsor of terrorism.

On October 26, Poland declared the Russian regime a terrorist regime, and Russia a state that supported and implemented terrorist measures.

On November 13, the Czech Parliament declared the Russian regime a terrorist regime.

On November 21, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution stating that the Russian Federation and its current regime are acting as a terrorist organization.

On November 23, the European Parliament declared that Russia uses the means of terrorism and is a state sponsor of terrorism, due to Russian strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, energy infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and shelters.

On November 24, the Netherlands declared the Russian Federation a sponsor of terrorism.

In 2022, after Russian strikes on vital infrastructure sites in Ukraine, from the. legal point of view Russia meets the criteria of a “terrorist state,” as adopted in the United States and the EU.

The world is on the verge of a nuclear war, and it all started with the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and personally their commander-in-chief.

However, [the borders of Ukraine] were recognized by both parties (Ukraine and Russia) back in 1992.

[The borders] of the Russian Federation are fixed in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which can be changed only by means of a referendum, in which the whole country, its entire multinational people, approves them. Amendments to the Constitution and its articles made arbitrarily by the President or anyone else are illegal and constitute a crime.

According to the laws of the Russian Federation, these are also crimes:

Planning, preparing, unleashing, or waging a war of aggression (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 353)
Publicly calling for war to be waged (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 354)
Genocide (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 357)
Engaging in mercenary activities (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 359)
Engaging in international terrorism (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 361)

Along with all of the aforesaid, I would like to say that no one apart from the authorities of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation threatens international security, but the citizens of the Russian Federation, including myself, have no right or possibility to countervail the actions of the authorities and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

The purpose of my posts was to show my disagreement with the horror that has gone on for over a year, a horror in which hundreds of people die every day. In the name of what?

With the start of the special military operation, war broke out not only on the front lines and in the international arena, but also in the soul of every person. The hearts of millions of Russians are in the firing line. We are all now in a state of mental civil war, a civil war that was unleashed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Vladimir Putin), the Federation Council, the Security Council, and the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

Source: “‘I will not change my stance’: history teacher from Komi gets five and a half years for anti-war posts,” Sever.Realii (Radio Svoboda), 11 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade Koganzon for the heads-up. Mediazona, which has also published a complete transcript of Mr. Tushkanov’s testimony, included a slightly different version of his closing statement at the trial, which I have translated below:

I think we know the verdict in advance. I don’t think I can influence the decisions you make with my closing statement.

I have not changed my stance about the “incident” or, I don’t know, “the events that occurred in Ukraine”: it remains what it was. I condemn the war. I consider it criminal. Just like all aggression.

Well, even in the Criminal Code there is an article about necessary self-defense. Which is being employed by the other side [the Ukrainian military].

At the outset of the hearing, I asked for a recusal. You, of course, did not grant it. In this regard, I would like to say…

I don’t want to ask you for justice, but I can’t ask you for mercy.

A Letter from Oleg Belousov

On March 29, Oleg Belousov was the first person in St. Petersburg to be convicted on charges of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army. Judge Eva Gunter sentenced him to five and a half years in a medium-security penal colony.

Formally, Belousov was charged for comments he made on the community social media page “St. Petersburg Diggers.” The case was launched after Belousov was denounced to the authorities by Sergei Chmyhun, another person involved in the community page. The court handed down a guilty verdict despite the fact that Belousov has a third-class disability and a disabled son as a dependent.

Bumaga wrote to Oleg. We have published his slightly abridged reply below. Oleg writes about his health problems, his love for his son, and his gratitude to the people who supported him.

Oleg Belousov, amateur archaeologist, member of the MIA searchers movement, and political prisoner.
Photo by Andrei Bok for Bumaga

Thank you so much for informing readers and following my case as it unfolded. As many people as possible should find out about this regime’s mendaciousness, about phrases taken out of context, and the trumped-up case. Before my arrest, I still had some doubts about whether I had been mistaken about something, whether I was wrong. But after seeing all the dirt and lies, my doubts were dispelled!

For health reasons. I received ointment for dermatitis of the eyelids: my sister looked for one [kind?], and a young woman from the support group (unfortunately, I don’t know her name) looked for the other one. The medical worker muttered [my] last name and asked, “Who sent it?” I replied that I was a political prisoner and anyone could have sent it, not only relatives. I get letters from all over Russia, and not only from Russia.

Would that I [had received the ointment] right away, but I had to suffer for three months—you won’t get medical help in here. My sister also sent two bottles of [eye]drops, but to get them, you have to go through a whole quest. To begin with, you get an appointment with a doctor, then the doctor has to make a note in your medical record and file an application to be allowed to send it, and then there’s the sending and receiving…

Due to numbness in my right arm and left leg, I do exercises for the cervical spine and the joints. It’s all based on the body’s internal forces, there is no osteopath in her.

Everything is alright, I can’t be broken. I’m more worried about my son. There were a lot of things that I hadn’t done for him yet, that I didn’t teach him to do. He is a disabled child: he suffers from a residual organic lesion of the central nervous system. He certainly lacks my help. He has problems with work too: it’s no so easy for him to find a job. My sister, my niece, and her husband also have health problems. So I’m more worried about them. But me, I’ll get stronger, I’ll toughen up. I’m not afraid of challenges. They won’t shut my mouth, I have a right to my own opinion.

Since I’ve been behind bars, I’ve seen my son only at the court hearings. He worries, of course. When I was arrested, he hugged me and said, “How am I going to live without you?” I will never leave him, of course, and when I get out, I will help him as long as I live.

I now see how many good, honest, decent people there are in Russia who are not afraid to express their opinions. I feel their support, and it gives me strength.

As for the verdict, it was expected, so I took it calmly. How else [could the case have ended]? You can’t expect anything else from liars. It would be smarter for them not to instigate such cases, not to disgrace themselves before the whole world, but they think with a different part of their bodies.

About the provocateur/informer. I had thought earlier that he was a fool, a narrow-minded man. After his denunciation — well, the bastard turned out to be a repeat of 1937. But for every scoundrel, there are thousands of people in Russia who are responsive and ready to help. So what can I say about my feelings for this [person]? It’s like stepping in shit. It’s better not to meet such “people.”

Thanks so much to everyone who writes letters, sends food parcels, and worries about me, my son, and my loved ones! Don’t be afraid to speak the truth, to voice your stance publicly! What kind of freedom is it if you are forced to remain silent? All my cellmates and all the prison employees see and understand the whole situation and what is happening.

Nothing’s gone to change me. I have been an honest, decent person, and I will come out one too! Be kind! May the skies above your head be peaceful!

Source: “‘I have been an honest, decent person, and I will come out one too’: a letter from Petersburger Oleg Belousov, sentenced to five and half years in a penal colony for ‘fake news about the army,'” Bumaga, 27 April 2023. The emphasis (in bold) was in the original article. Translated by the Russian Reader

Surrender

“A Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces”

Declaration Russian Democratic Forces started this petition

In this tragic hour, we declare our strategic goals to be the cessation of aggression against Ukraine and the creation of a free, law-governed, federated Russia. To accomplish this, we deem it necessary to coordinate our actions more vigorously. We declare our commitment to the following principled positions:

1. The war against Ukraine is criminal. Russian troops must be withdrawn from all occupied territories. Russia’s internationally recognized borders must be reinstated. War criminals must be brought to justice, and compensation must be paid to the victims of the aggression.

2. The Putin regime is illegitimate and criminal. Therefore, it must be eliminated. We envision Russia as a country in which the rights and freedoms of individuals are guaranteed, and in which the possibility of usurping state power is excluded.

3. The pursuit of imperialist policies inside and outside the country is unacceptable.

4. Political prisoners and prisoners of war should be released, forcibly displaced persons should be able to return home, and abducted Ukrainian children should be returned to Ukraine.

5. We express our solidarity with those Russians who, despite the monstrous crackdown, have had the courage to publicly voice anti-Putin and anti-war stances, and with those tens of millions who refuse to be accomplices in the regime’s crimes.

The signatories of the Declaration espouse the values of a democratic society and respectful discussion. They acknowledge human rights and freedoms and the principles of diversity and equality, and they reject discrimination.

The signatories refrain from public conflicts within the democratic and the anti-war movements.

We commit ourselves to supporting this Declaration until our common strategic goals have been achieved.

Berlin, 30 April 2023

Signed publicly by:

La Asociación de Rusos Libres (Spain)
Stuttgart Activist Group
The Flame of Freedom Movement
Мedia Partisans
Russie-Libertés (France)
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, politician
Yevgeny Chichvarkin, member of the Russian Action Committee
Garry Kasparov, co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, Russian Action Committee
Boris Zimin
Yevgenia Chirikova
Anastasia Burakova, founder of the Ark
Sergey Aleksashenko
Yulia Latynina, writer, journalist
Alfred Koch
Mark Feygin
Sergei Guriev
Dmitry Gudkov, politician
Yevgeny Kiselyov
Kirill Rogov
Ivan Tyutrin
Maxim Reznik
Elena Lukyanova
Andrei Illarionov
Leonid Gozman
Demyan Kudryavtsev
Yuri Pivovarov, historian
Marat Guelman, SLOVONOVO Forum of Russian Culture in Europe

[and 64 other signatories]

Source: Change.org. Thanks to Boris Romanov for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Cheap Trick, “Surrender” (1978)

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Mother told me, yes, she told me
I'd meet girls like you
She also told me, "Stay away
You'll never know what you'll catch"
Just the other day I heard
Of a soldier's falling off
Some Indonesian junk
That's going 'round

[Chorus]
Mommy's alright
Daddy's alright
They just seem a little weird
Surrender
Surrender
But don't give yourself away
Hey, hey

[Verse 2]
Father says, "Your mother's right
She's really up on things
Before we married, Mommy served
In the WACS in the Philippines”
Now, I had heard the WACs recruited
Old maids for the war
But Mommy isn't one of those
I've known her all these years

[Chorus]
Mommy's alright
Daddy's alright
They just seem a little weird
Surrender
Surrender
But don't give yourself away
Hey, hey

[Verse 3]
Whatever happened to all this season's
Losers of the year?
Every time I got to thinking
Where'd they disappear?
But then I woke up, Mom and Dad
Are rolling on the couch
Rolling numbers, rock and rollin'
Got my KISS records out

[Chorus]
Mommy's alright
Daddy's alright
They just seem a little weird
Surrender
Surrender
But don't give yourself away
Hey, hey
Away
Away

[Outro]
Surrender (Mommy's all right)
Surrender (Daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender (Mommy's all right)
Surrender (Daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender (Mommy's all right)
Surrender (Daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender (Bun E.’s alright)
Surrender (Tommy’s alright)
But don't give yourself away (Robin’s alright, Rick’s alright)
Surrender (We’re all alright)
Surrender (We’re all alright)
But don't give yourself away (We’re all alright, We’re all alright)
Surrender (Mommy's all right)
Surrender (Daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender (Mommy's all right)
Surrender (Daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away

Source: Genius

What Emotions Do You Feel When You Think About Russia?

Students at the Mechnikov Medical University [in Petersburg] have told Bumaga that the dean’s office has asked them to fill out an online test about their attitude to the war in Ukraine, the president, and the future of Russia.

The students said that they were simply asked to take a survey—they were not informed about possible punishments for those who refused to fill out the test.

Before completing the test, students must log in through their VKontakte accounts or with a phone number, for example.

Students are asked to answer the following questions:

Do you generally trust the rector of your university?
What emotions do you feel when you think about Russia?
How much do you agree that things in our country are moving in the right direction?
Do you generally trust Russian President Vladimir Putin?
Do you think President Vladimir Putin is doing a good job or a poor job as president?
Has your attitude towards President Vladimir Putin changed over the past month? If it has changed, has it worsened or improved?
Choose the symbol that best fits the concept of “President of Russia.”
In your opinion, does Russia face the threat of a military attack?
Do you support Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine?
Choose the symbol that best fits the concept of “Special Military Operation.”

The survey also asks students to indicate what the country’s leadership should prioritize: strengthening sovereignty, strengthening the state, or developing the economy. The only alternative to these options is “undecided.”

The survey was created by the platform Concerned Individual, which operates in cooperation with the Education Ministry. It is marked as “April University Student Survey.” An employee of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University [in Petersburg] also reported to Bumaga that [students there had been asked to complete the survey].

If you have received such a request, tell us about it by writing to our Telegram bot: @PaperPaperNewsBot. It’s anonymous and safe.

Source: “Petersburg students asked to take a survey about their attitude to Putin and the war in Ukraine,” Bumaga, 25 April 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

A screenshot of the front page of Concerned Individual’s website, featuring an interactive map of Russia’s federal districts. According to Concerned Individual, 82% of people in the Northwest Federal District (in red), which includes St. Petersburg, are “concerned individuals.” Twenty-nine percent of them (according to VTSIOM) have donated money to people or organizations. Fifteen percent have donated items to orphanages, old folks’ homes, and homes for the disabled. Four percent have been involved in charity events such as concert and exhibitions. Six percent of them have worked as volunteers.

Universities in all regions of Russia will join the platform Concerned Individual to become initiators and participants of positive change at their educational institutions and in the higher education system as a whole.

Along with the Russian Science and Higher Education Ministry, the Russian Education Ministry, Tomsk State University, and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), Concerned Individual is launching a program of regular opinion polling of students, teachers, and administrative staff at Russian universities. We plan to recruit representatives of more than 700 tertiary educational institutions to the platform by the end of 2024.

The project’s aim is to form a permanent feedback mechanism between the university community and state authorities, to identify problems that need solving as well as promising directions for the growth of higher education.

“We believe that such a dialogue is especially necessary today, and our platform is technologically and methodically ready to provide it. Concerned people are the key potential for change in the universities, regions, and country. And opinion polls are a scientifically grounded tool that has proven itself well and reflect a real cross-section of the situation. Therefore, we urge students, teachers, and administrative staff to take part in the project and voice their opinion on the most pressing social issues,” comments Vadim Arakelov, CEO of the company Concerned Citizen.

The first wave of polls will kick off on April 10. Respondents will answer questions about the quality of education, media consumption, socio-psychological well-being, and other topics. In 2023, polls will also be conducted in May, September, October, and November. You can take part in the surveys by clicking on the link posted in your personal university account.

The results of the surveys will be published on Concerned Individual’s Telegram channel and website, and posted in the personal accounts of students and university staff.

Source: “Large-scale program of opinion polling of students and employees of Russian universities launched,” Concerned Individual, 10 April 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

I grew up in this environment. From childhood I learned about the horrors of war and the horror of losing parents, through the tears of my grandmother and my grandfather I knew how hard it was for the children of victims of political persecution to live.

With this knowledge and a sense of duty, I joined a search party in 2013 and until 2019 was involved in searching for unburied soldiers and officers of the Winter War of 1939–40 and the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 and reburying them with full military honors.

I loved my homeland and continue to love it, but my love changed due to the way my country, Russia, has behaved towards its own citizens (including veterans, leaving them on the sidelines of life, without assistance) and in the international arena.

I used to see no difference between the concepts of “State” and “Homeland,” but now they are absolutely opposed concepts for me. How did this happen?

It all started in 2014, and not with the annexation of Crimea, which I accepted, as did the majority of the [Russian] populace. It all started with combat involving unidentified military units in which my comrades served. They told me firsthand about what went on there and who did what.

[…]

We have had to pay for it all. Sanctions were imposed, and the so-called pension reform was carried out, but they simply confiscated the populace’s hard-earned money. They froze the invested part of pensions, raised the VAT, and much more. In the name of what?

It’s not the sea that drowns people, but the puddle.

I was baffled by the building of the Crimean Bridge. Didn’t we have other places where bridges needed to be built? There were thousands of possible places for this. But [they built the bridge] on territory that Ukraine recognizes as its own, as does the entire international community.

And now I am charged with violating two articles of the Russian Federal Criminal Code.

Article 205.2.2

I should say that I reject terrorism. I do not approve of acts of terrorism, and I regard them only negatively, no matter who commits them. I have not made calls for terrorist attacks, and I have never sought to condone their goals.

The [social media] post in question [in the case against Tushkanov] was published on 8 October at 10:04 a.m. Moscow Time. I could not have foreseen the fact that the damage to the bridge, a military target, would be declared a terrorist attack.

Despite the fact that terrorism and acts of terrorism pursue clear goals of generating publicity and pressure [on their targets], no one has claimed responsibility for the incident on the bridge, no terrorist organization has made demands, and there have been no statements [of responsibility].

It was an act of sabotage, targeting a site that is still used for military purposes. So I thought at the time [when I published my social media post] and I still think so to this day. But it was in no way an act of terrorism.

Ukraine considers Crimea its own territory and is in the active phase of hostilities, which also points to the fact that [the attack on the Crimean Bridge] was and is an instance of sabotage.

In any war, bridges are key supply routes for armies, such as the bridges blown up by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and the bridges under the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that have been attacked by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

These strikes did not affect the supplying of weapons and other materiel to the front. They affected such critical [civilian] infrastructure as heating, water supply, and healthcare.

And all of the above attacks on civilian targets took place before the attack on the Crimean Bridge. Who committed a terrorist attack after that?

Article 280.3.1

The concept of “discrediting” the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is not specified anywhere and is not substantiated. There is no such concept in the case files or the indictment, and it is absent in regulatory acts.

As for the “maintenance of international peace,” after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Russia was subjected to sanctions that caused great damage to many of its economic structures, and caused many manufacturers to exit the Russian market.

According to the international community, the main purpose of the strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid was the desire to sow fear among the populace and make people’s lives unbearable!

As a result of this “defense of its own interests and its citizens,” Russia has turned into a worse scarecrow than Afghanistan.

On May 22, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declared Russia a terrorist state.

On August 2, 2022, the Saeima of Latvia declared Russia a sponsor of terrorism.

On October 13 (after the bombing and destruction of a portion of the Ukrainian power grid), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared the Russian government a terrorist regime.

On October 18, Estonia declared the Russian Federation a state sponsor of terrorism.

On October 26, Poland declared the Russian regime a terrorist regime, and Russia a state that supported and implemented terrorist measures.

On November 13, the Czech Parliament declared the Russian regime a terrorist regime.

On November 21, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution stating that the Russian Federation and its current regime are acting as a terrorist organization.

On November 23, the European Parliament declared that Russia uses the means of terrorism and is a state sponsor of terrorism, due to Russian strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, energy infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and shelters.

On November 24, the Netherlands declared the Russian Federation a sponsor of terrorism.

In 2022, after Russian strikes on vital infrastructure sites in Ukraine, from the. legal point of view Russia meets the criteria of a “terrorist state,” as adopted in the United States and the EU.

The world is on the verge of a nuclear war, and it all started with the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and personally their commander-in-chief.

However, [the borders of Ukraine] were recognized by both parties (Ukraine and Russia) back in 1992.

According to the laws of the Russian Federation, these are also crimes:

Planning, preparing, unleashing, or waging a war of aggression (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 353)

Publicly calling for war to be waged (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 354)

Genocide (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 357)

Engaging in mercenary activities (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 359)

Engaging in international terrorism (per Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 361)

The purpose of my posts was to show my disagreement with the horror that has gone on for over a year, a horror in which hundreds of people die every day. In the name of what?