Cruel and Unusual

I am heating water for my coffee on a gas burner because there is no electricity.

Kyiv, the Kyiv region, Odesa region, and the Dnipropetrovsk region are in a total blackout — the result of Russia systematically destroying Ukraine’s energy system over the past months.

The Kyiv metro has stopped. There is no water anywhere.

At the same time, Russia’s State Duma Speaker Volodin, speaking on behalf of Russian deputies, openly calls for genocide — urging new strikes on Ukraine’s already devastated energy and heating infrastructure in order to cause mass civilian deaths.

This weekend the temperature drops sharply. Next week, it is expected to reach –30°C.

Meanwhile, ordinary Russians are celebrating on social media that Ukrainians are freezing.

We know this logic well. Their aspiration is simple: to make life here “like it is for them.”

In Russia, even without war, power outages in entire regions are normal.

In a gas-rich country, it is normal for many regions to have no gas at all.

This is exactly what the so-called Russian world aims for — to make us like them, if not through conquest, then through the destruction of our critical infrastructure and the physical extermination of Ukrainians.

Source: Lyuba Yakimchuk (Facebook), 31 January 2026

The number of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention on a given day has skyrocketed, jumping more than sixfold since the start of the second Trump administration. The Marshall Project analyzed data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and found that ICE held around 170 children on an average day under Trump. During the last 16 months of the Biden administration, ICE held around 25 children a day.

The Marshall Project’s analysis found that on some days, ICE held 400 children or more. The data covers September 2023 to mid-October 2025, meaning it does not include the surge of arrests from recent immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota. Nor does the data include children in the custody of the Border Patrol or the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where children are held without a guardian.

The Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas is the main facility for family detention. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro spent two-and-a-half hours inside Dilley on Wednesday, visiting parents and children. He said that the 1,100 detainees housed at the facility included a 2-month-old infant. “They are literally being treated as prisoners,” said Castro, a Democrat from San Antonio, in a live-streamed video. “This is a monstrous machine.”

In 2021, Biden largely halted the practice of family detention, and the Dilley facility, which had mostly housed families, closed in 2024. But the Trump administration revived the practice last year, and the facility, which is located about 75 miles outside of San Antonio, reopened.

The detainment of children by ICE has led to protests in recent weeks, both inside and outside Dilley. On Wednesday, state police used pepper spray on people protesting outside.

Immigration attorney Eric Lee was visiting clients at the facility on Saturday when staff abruptly told him to leave. Outside, he could hear a large group of children and women detained inside chanting, “Let us out.” Lee said he later learned that families inside the detention center had gotten news that people across the country were protesting the detainment of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose story went viral amid the backlash against the Trump administration’s recent immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.

The Marshall Project (YouTube), 28 January 2026

Javier Hidalgo, legal director at the Texas-based immigration advocacy group RAICES said he’s seen many young children like Liam in Dilley. “That’s very much the norm,” Hidalgo said. “That’s what the government is spending taxpayer money on.”

A previous Marshall Project analysis found that ICE has booked at least 3,800 children into detention since Trump took office last year. At least 1,000 children were held longer than 20 days, a court-ordered limit on child detention.

“Every single day that a kid is in a place like this, they deteriorate,” Hidalgo said. “I’ve seen [them] withdraw. They lose weight; they just get physically worse.”

Children being detained with their families as part of immigration raids has become a common occurrence across the country. According to school officials in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, four children, including Liam, have been detained from their district during recent raids.

A 7-year-old in Portland, Oregon, was taken from a hospital parking lot in January with her family, after her parents took her to the emergency room, according to Oregon Live. As ProPublica reported, a 6-year-old boy in Chicago was detained with his mother in a large apartment raid during “Operation Midway Blitz.”

The Marshall Project spoke with three different lawyers representing children who were held with their families at Dilley. They said their clients were often taken into detention during in-person check-ins and had pending cases that could result in them remaining in the country legally. The lawyers believe their clients were detained not because of any danger they posed, but because the Trump administration is trying to deport as many people as possible.

“They’re probably the easiest catch for a lot of immigration officials,” said Veronica Franco Salazar, a Houston-based immigration lawyer.

In court documents, families have described horrific conditions while detained with their children in Dilley. They reported moldy, worm-filled food and foul-tasting, undrinkable water. With little for children to do, some resorted to playing with rocks. Parents worried about the psychological toll of detention, describing children hitting themselves in their faces or wetting themselves despite being potty-trained.

During his visit, Castro said that he heard many families talk about the psychological toll of detention. He spent half an hour with Liam, and said Liam’s father, Adrian Conejo Arias, told him Liam has been depressed and sleeping a lot. Liam remained asleep in his father’s arms during the visit with Castro. Arias said Liam had been asking about his classmates and the bunny hat he was wearing when detained. The congressman said he told the father that children at Liam’s school were still saving a spot for him at his desk.

CoreCivic, the private company running the Dilley facility, declined to answer a detailed list of questions. “Our responsibility is to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to,” Brian Todd, a public affairs employee at CoreCivic, told The Marshall Project in an emailed statement. Todd referred all questions to ICE, which did not respond to emails.

Kristin Kumpf, coordinator for the National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention, explained that the public may see videos or photos of the moments people are taken from their homes or snatched off the street, but there is less attention to the conditions children endure in the black box of detention.

“It’s only a matter of time before we see a child die within Dilley or another facility,” Kumpf said.

Hayam El-Gamal and her five children, including 5-year-old twins, have been locked inside Dilley for eight grueling months. Lee, who represents the family, said they’ve received poor medical care and are suffering from psychological stress.

“They’re calling me crying every day,” Lee said. “It’s an unmitigated horror show, and there’s no other way to put it.”

El-Gamal’s husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is facing charges for attacking people at an event in Colorado supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza. At least 13 people were injured in the attack, and one person died, according to prosecutors. Soliman told detectives his family knew nothing of the attack, according to court documents, and an FBI agent testified they were not involved. The family’s lawyer said they are being unfairly punished for crimes they had no part in.

Lee recounted how one of El-Gamal’s children had appendicitis while in detention and “was left writhing on the floor of the facility screaming and in pain.” Lee said facility staff just gave him Tylenol, and it was only when he started vomiting that the child was taken to urgent care.

“Why is this happening to us?” El-Gamal’s eldest daughter, 18-year-old Habiba Soliman, asked in a handwritten statement provided to The Marshall Project by Lee. “It’s very easy to see the truth about this place and about us. The people need to be truthful to themselves and follow the facts.”

Lee said he believes ICE is retaliating against Habiba Soliman for speaking out about her family’s long detention. She was recently moved to a different area of the facility. Lee said the timing of the move, many months after her 18th birthday, but shortly after she spoke to the press about her long detainment, suggested it was punishment. ICE did not respond to questions about the reason for the separation. Lee said she has faced threats of being moved to a different facility altogether if she didn’t behave.

“I will never forget the look of fear and helplessness on my mother’s face as she watched me being taken away and couldn’t do anything to prevent it,” Habiba Soliman wrote in her statement. “We need everyone to step up and say that detaining families for indefinitely long periods should be illegal.”

Source: Anna Flagg and Shannon Heffernan, “‘Why Is This Happening to Us?’ Daily Number of Kids in ICE Detention Jumps 6x Under Trump,” The Marshall Project, 29 January 2026. Thanks to White Rose Resistance for the heads-up.

2016 (Have a Heart)

About the Book

In this gripping tale of contemporary Russia, a young filmmaker and her friends run afoul of a government that ruthlessly oppresses artists who dare to satirize the regime…

When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends, it seems like a promising start to a career in indie film. Little does she know that her jokey lo-fi film will soon attract the attention of the autocratic censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state.

What follows is a propulsive narrative of an artist being crushed by state power, and the choices that one makes within a system where free expression is literally illegal. Written with the undeniable voice of a emigre from Putin’s Russia, The Undead is a tense, piercing story that serves as a parable, and a warning, about political oppression.

Contributors

Svetlana Satchkova is a Russian-born journalist and writer who immigrated to the United States in 2016. She is an established arts journalist with bylines in the Rumpus, Newsweek, LARB, and others. She is currently a research fellow at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University, has an MFA from Brooklyn College, and lives in Brooklyn. The Undead is her first novel in English.

Praise

“[An] exquisite balance between contentment and foreboding, tranquility and chaos” — Vogue

“Chillingly examines the Russian government’s stranglehold on the arts and media industries …. a convincing cautionary tale of the dangers of political apathy.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A] brisk, vivid page turner” — The Milwaukee Shepherd Express

“There is nothing supernatural about the zombies in Svetlana Satchkova’s savvy, frightening novel. They are all of us, wherever we are, who keep looking away when authoritarian forces crush expression. Witty and unsettling, The Undead is a cautionary tale about, among other things, never quite admitting where the danger lies until it’s too late.” —Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

“The Undead is a courageous and witty book about art and politics. With keen insight and wry humor, Svetlana Satchkova evokes a devastating artistic and moral reckoning. This fascinating, propulsive novel will stay with me.” —Helen Phillips, author of The Need

“The Undead has the force of an undertow, pulling us relentlessly away from safety. Svetlana Satchkova has written a gripping, haunting portrait of a world coming undone.” —Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

In The Undead, the career and well-being of Maya, a young filmmaker in Moscow, unravel in the most bizarre, realistic way, showcasing the insidious, absurd nature of a totalitarian state. Deeply informative and engrossing, The Undead examines how bizarre and horrific human nature can evolve under the pressure of the desire to live unharmed rather than free. A moving examination of the meaning of home, the horror of a dictatorship, the hilarity and joy of movie-making, and one woman’s political coming of age in Putin’s Russia. Truly important reading for our times.” —Paula Bomer, author of The Stalker

Source: Melville House. The emphasis is mine. ||||| TRR

Glinstake, “Live at 16 Tons”

Glintshake‘s performance at the club 16 Tons on 2 April 2016.

Setlist:

Halfman
My New Style
Squalor
Shadows
Fifteen Minutes to Five
The Steppe is the Place
Have a Heart 8
Phoenix

ГШ (GLINTSHAKE): Facebook •. VK • Soundcloud • iTunes • Instagram

CREDITS:

Camera: Alec Mirzametov, Anton Rodionov • Editing/Grading: Alec Mirzametov

Source: Alec Mir (YouTube), 30 May 2016. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader. The emphasis is mine. ||||| TRR

Glintshake, “Have a Heart” • Erarta Museum, St. Petersburg, 2 April 2017 • Source: Denis Morozov (YouTube)

[Verse 1]
Beyond the bright lights
Of sleepy buildings
Lines in the snow
Send signals
From distant stations
Docks are waiting
Waiting in the fog
For distant shores
In the haze of summer
In the arctic circle

[Chorus]
Have a heart

[Verse 2]
A gusty wind
Noise on the line
The compactor gently crushes the white Volga, waves splash
The markings are washed away
The airfield is not visible in the fog, the camera clicks
The speed drops
The waves crash
The earliest
The most distant flight
Faces and shadows
Of random passersby

[Bridge]
In dark apartments
In yellow deserts
In blue snows
In fiery rivers
In the foggy sea

[Chorus]
Have a heart

[Outro]
Salt on the dials
The needle flutters
The airfield is invisible in the fog, the camera clicks
Step on the gas!
In the endless field, in the pink jungle, in the summer haze
Have a heart

Source: Genius. Translated by the Russian Reader

Glintshake, “Halfman” (2016)

[Verse 1]
Headlights, I see a shadow
Someone’s been hanging around for days
Standing around the corner
Lying on the grass under the window
A bloodsucker
Or the corner
Loading
His black barrel
His black barrel
His black barrel
His black barrel

Who is he, a skinner
Or a TV reporter
A maniac, a Satanist
Or a Russian Orthodox Stalinist
I hear the wind
An ominous moan
The pungent scent
Of pouring cologne

[Chorus]
A halfman
Roams Moscow
A halfman
In a half-jacket

[Verse 2]
Strolls in places
Where everything is sold without a passport
Zhiguli cars are burning
We gotta move before they sweep us away
Gritting my teeth
I dance
In a techno club
Four days

When I grow up
I’ll stop thinking and understand everything
The light of faith will dispel the darkness
My same-sex marriage will fall apart
I’ll go out into the world
I’ll throw away my syringe
I’ll become the best
Of all the shop girls

[Chorus]
A halfman
Roams Moscow
A halfman
Not in his right mind

Source: Genius. Translated by the Russian Reader

In my days as a magazine editor in Russia, I used to write about movies Volodymyr Zelensky starred in. I thought of him as a decent actor and a nice enough person. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen him turn into a towering historical figure. Watching his impassioned address to the UN Security Council, in which he spoke about war crimes committed by Russian troops in a town of Bucha, I caught myself thinking that I want Russia’s next leader to be just like him – courageous, principled, and boundlessly empathetic.

In the fall of 1993, I began my first semester at NYU. Just one year earlier, I’d been a regular Moscow teenager, whose wildest ambition was to own a nice pair of jeans. But my father had been offered a job at an American company, and our family relocated to New York. With the move, the world suddenly opened to me, possibilities beckoning. My father, ever the practical man, told me to study business. Ever the obedient Soviet child, I didn’t protest, despite the fact that nothing could interest me less — but fortunately for me, there was no such thing as a business major at NYU, and, when I got my BA in philosophy, I moved back to Russia, leaving my parents and younger brother behind. The fact that I did so was testament to how profoundly I’d changed in four years.

I was barely 20, but my reasons for returning were clear. I’d fallen in love with a man who lived in Moscow, and I longed for the glorious city which I still considered to be my home. In 1997, Moscow was an exciting place where everything was changing at an incredible pace. New lives were being built on top of the remnants of the USSR. I also felt drawn to Russian intellectual culture, having started writing my first novel in Russian, and I wanted my child, whom I was already carrying, to speak my native language as fluently as I did.

My marriage to the father of my son didn’t work out, as was perhaps expected of a union between people so young. But I was busy becoming who I wanted to be — a writer and a mother — and quickly bounced back. Meanwhile, Russia continued to change. In August 1999, I saw Vladimir Putin on television for the very first time, introduced as the new prime minister. I’ve never been particularly politically astute, but at that moment, I saw in his face, as in a crystal ball, what was going to happen in the years to come: the scheming, the corruption, the crackdown on independent media, the police state.

In September of that same year, a series of explosions destroyed several apartment blocks in the cities of Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk; over 300 people died and 1700 were injured. I remember watching the news late at night, my two-year-old son asleep in the next room, and trembling in fear as I wondered if my building would be next. I imagined the most horrible thing – not that we’d both be dead, but dying, separated by fallen walls, him calling me, pleading for help. In a few days, rumors abounded that it was Putin who’d ordered the explosions with the aim of blaming them on Chechen militant Islamists. He became president in 2000, after starting the second war in Chechnya and famously having promised to “snuff ‘em in the outhouse,” to the delight of the majority of the population of Russia.

Had I believed my initial premonition, I would’ve left right away, but I liked to think of myself as a rational person. And so I tried to convince myself that I was being paranoid. It wasn’t easy.

Over the next ten years, Putin’s regime took away people’s freedoms in tiny steps that were probably meant to be unnoticeable, while he gathered enough power for himself that he could change the constitution and effectively be president indefinitely. Meanwhile, I built up my Moscow life. I was a writer, but I was also a single mother whose relatives lived across the ocean, and I worried about what would happen to my son if anything happened to me. So, though I wanted to report on the shrinking of democracy, I wrote instead about beauty and culture. In this way, I thought, I’d protect myself from the dangers of those who covered nationalist movements and wars. I wouldn’t end up dead, like Anna Politkovskaya and countless others.

But self-preservation under a regime like Putin’s can only take you so far. In 2014, when the people of Ukraine ousted their pro-Russia president Victor Yanukovych from his office, Putin swiftly moved into the neighboring country and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Russian society split into two opposing camps, one cheering Putin’s maneuver and the other incensed by it. The question “Who does Crimea belong to?” became the most salient marker of “them” versus “us.” Marriages crumbled under the weight of this question; friendships were irreparably broken; people became estranged from their parents. Later that year, a provision to the criminal law obligated all dual nationals to report to the authorities. I made a copy of my American passport, filled out the requisite forms, and went to my local branch of the Federal Migration Service. The man who inspected my documents had the unmistakable air of someone who was embroiled in Russian state bureaucracy, at once condescending and menacing. He made it exceedingly clear what he thought of the likes of me, and when I came home that evening, I told my partner that, finally, I wanted to leave Russia for good.

It took us another two years to make the move, and we arrived in the United States in 2016. I began writing fiction in English and continued to work for Russian media outlets that didn’t support Putin’s regime. Still, I was careful not to write about politics, knowing that, if I went back to Moscow, I could face prosecution. Everything changed this February, however: Putin’s invasion into Ukraine — a country that I’d visited often and love, a country where many of my friends hail from — made it impossible for me to keep silent. I need to say publicly that this war is abhorrent and that Russians do not equal Putin –– even those of us who, like me, have been afraid to speak out in the past.

I do realize that I’m able to take this risk because I’m in New York, protected by my American passport. A law has been passed in Russia that prohibits its citizens from using the word “war” to refer to the “special operation” that’s taking place in Ukraine, and effectively prevents them from saying they’re against it under the threat of imprisonment. My heart goes out to all the people back home who feel the same way I do. I know that there are many of them and that they are experiencing crushing guilt for failing to somehow stop Putin, the president they didn’t elect. And while we’ll agonize for a long time over the question of what more each of us could have done, it’s beyond clear that peaceful protests don’t stand a chance against Putin’s weapons and his complete disregard for human life.

Source: Svetlana Satchkova, “I’m Russian and I stayed quiet about Putin for a long time. This is what I really think,” The Independent, 11 April 2022. The emphasis is mine.||||| TRR

Stand with Ukraine Through Darkness

As temperatures in Kyiv plunged to -20°C (-4°F), Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving millions in total darkness and biting cold. Though Russia has tried this strategy before, this winter is different. The scale and relentlessness of these attacks have reached unprecedented levels. Many Ukrainians are now forced to survive winter without steady heat, without light, without the basic infrastructure that makes normal life possible.

• “As Russia tries to freeze Ukrainians to submission, families try everything to stay warm”
• “‘The situation now is the worst’ — Kyiv’s energy crisis deepens after Russia pounds power grid”

The reality behind the headlines

While this crisis unfolds, international coverage has been limited. We want you to see what’s actually happening on the ground.

Our journalists are reporting these stories while living them — and so is everyone else in Kyiv, rushing to charge phones during brief power windows, cooking on camping stoves in their kitchens, huddling under blankets in apartments that feel like freezers. For the elderly, it’s worse. When elevators stop working, they are stuck in their own homes, unable to reach food or medical care. What was occasional last winter is now constant.

To light the darkness

Building on our “I Stand with Ukraine” T-shirt, we’re launching I Stand with Ukraine Through Darkness — available as a T-shirt and hoodie.

From January 20 through February 3, all proceeds from this collection go to supporting the charitable organization Starenki, which helps older people living in vulnerable situations.

This winter Starenki’s volunteers provide a lifeline by:

Delivering essentials — Food and hygiene kits for older people, especially those who are physically unable to navigate stairs to reach shops. When high-rise buildings are left without power, elevators become inoperable — effectively trapping seniors in their apartments.

Providing emotional aid — Companionship and conversation to combat the profound isolation that comes with darkness.

SHOP I STAND WITH UKRAINE THROUGH DARKNESS

Why this matters now

As Ukraine enters its fourth winter of war, international attention is fading. The reality of these freezing blackouts is slipping from the headlines.

By wearing this design, you do more than help support the elderly in Ukraine — you raise awareness of the situation and keep Ukraine from slipping from the world’s attention.

Share this. Wear this. Spread the word.

Source: The Kyiv Independent Store email newsletter, 20 January 2026. I have purchased one of these t-shirts and would urge you to do so as well. ||||| TRR

[Editor’s note: On January 21, Kyiv’s Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, urged the city’s inhabitants to “leave if you can.” 600,000 have already left these last two weeks since Russia intensified its attack on the city’s energy infrastructure. The mayor says that the constant Russian attacks are pushing the city towards “a humanitarian catastrophe.” Temperatures are plunging to as low as –18°C (0°F). According to Klitschko, “the situation is critical with basic services – heating, water, electricity. Right now, 5,600 apartment buildings are without heating.” This morning, President Zelenskiy said that one million people in Kyiv are now without power. The city’s authorities have now have been forced to drain the city’s central heating and water system to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting. A couple of days ago, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy, Denys Shmyhal, said that “there is not a single power plant in Ukraine that has not been hit by the enemy during the war.”]

Today we received this from a dear, long-term friend in Kyiv:

BY OLEKSIY KURKA, resident of Kyiv, works in diplomacy and policymaking

I’ve written about Russian attacks so many times that the words no longer convey any new meaning, muted by repetition. But friends abroad cared to check in with me after last night, so here is an update.

As of this hour, only a fraction of the capital has electricity. I’ve been without power for about 24 hours now; others for much longer. It isn’t clear when it might return.

The heating is also off. The building is gradually cooling down. Soon I’ll be breathing out vapour, like some of my friends. Those living through ‘no-heat’ situations for longer – such as those near the front lines – are now camping out in their flats. It’s 5-7°C warmer inside a tent inside your flat.

The attack caused massive disruptions to public transport. Segments of the Metro I use to commute were closed due to electricity shortages. Many, myself included, had to stay and work from home.

My portable power station is gradually running out. Not having a predictable source of power is beginning to worry me more. I can predict one thing: our foes will stop at nothing to inflict more suffering on Ukrainians – while they can.

On a brighter note, I found and successfully installed a solution to the lack of internet at home. It’s an external antenna that catches and amplifies signals from nearby towers. Even during prolonged outages, I have about 15-20 Mbps, which is brilliant.

As for the power, I was inspired by my neighbour who took a mini petrol generator out to the courtyard and recharged his upper-floor flat via an extension lead. Now I fancy having the same system – and solar panels, for when there’s more daylight. Anything that minimises energy dependence is a win.

I went for a walk on the slippery, ice-clad streets of my district in an off-grid darkness that once again revealed the starred heavens. Most businesses and shops are running off generators, their light bulbs making up for the absence of proper street lights, coupled with the headlights from cars. This is how we see. That, and the torches in our hands.

Earlier today, we chatted with a visiting colleague who asked many questions about life these days. I made the point that a war of attrition forces things upon you that you’d otherwise never have thought you’d need.

But when it happens a few times, you spot the trend and start thinking even more creatively about what is yet to come. Do I need to consider satellite internet now, or are the mobile towers maintained well enough for me to avoid rushed decisions and unnecessary costs? Thinking ahead and learning from others makes the unpredictability a tiny bit more predictable, as it were.

Do I plan to leave Kyiv because of these ‘inconveniences’? I said a long time ago that there are two conditions for me to make such a significant decision: when there is no drinking water, and when the prospect of Russian occupation looms larger.

The first is not yet a reality for Kyiv, and I hope it never will be. The latter is no longer a reality, thanks to the Ukrainian army and our partners who provide Ukraine with air defence, long-range, and other weapon systems.

One more thing: Even if I leave the place, it’s only to come back.

Source: “#blackoutnotes [Ukraine],” Two Grumpy Old Men on Ukraine, 21 January 2026

The sun floods the room like a Christmas postcard: snow-covered trees, silence, a fairy tale.

But it ends at the windowpane.

I stand in the middle of the room in two sweaters and a robe, clutching a cup of hot tea as if it could save me. The thermometer indoors reads +9°C (48°F). It’s the third day without heat, and every hour the cold settles deeper into the walls.

In my arms is my six-month-old son, Ustym. I hold him tighter than I should, trying to give him my warmth. And suddenly it hits me: I don’t know how to protect him from the cold.

I can endure it. He can’t.

I cry quietly so he won’t hear. The tears on my sleeve are warmer than the air in the room.

I pack to leave the city.

There, the power may go out—but there is warmth. What a strange word now. A luxury. A reason to flee your own home.

I thought this fear was mine alone. But when I wrote to my colleague Nastia, I realized the cold does not discriminate. She has no child, but the same thermometer, the same сold walls, and made the same decision to leave.

As a result of Russia’s prolonged strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including power plants and substations, large parts of Kyiv were left without heating for several days as temperatures dropped to –15°C — the lowest in recent years. During the January 9 attacks, damage to the power grid led to heating outages in approximately 6,000 apartment buildings, nearly half of the city, demonstrating how winter has become yet another front in the war.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko called the situation the most difficult for the capital since the start of the full-scale invasion and urged residents to temporarily leave the city, despite the opening of hundreds of heating centers. 600,000 Kyivans have fled the capital since January 9. For many, leaving the city is no longer a matter of comfort but one of survival.

It is a reminder that in times of war, even a major city can turn perilous overnight, and true security depends not only on the absence of missiles but on access to basic needs like heat, electricity, and water.

Our apartments turned into cold traps we had to escape. We came together to share this strange, frightening feeling, when every minute at home feels like a test, and survival becomes a daily struggle.

Nastia: On the night before the major strike that left us without heat, January 8, I took a hot shower for the first time in a week and had uninterrupted electricity for the whole evening.

Restoration work on hot water and heating had been underway in my building before, we always had problems with heating and water.

I felt like a human being again — someone who, after work, can properly warm up in the shower, instead of heating up a kettle 5 times.

After the attack, I was back to not having water, heating and electricity. When I woke up under two blankets I felt powerless again: I already knew I would cancel the plans I had that evening because of how exhausted I felt.

I didn’t even try to catch the internet in my apartment, because I knew I’d fail. I just washed my face under freezing water and went to the cafe nearby to work.

Later I was riding the metro and barely held back tears. Not even because of the cold, but because I would yet again have to spend my evening in a dark apartment all alone. Such evenings just gnaw at me, creating a deep sense of isolation. I know that when I set foot in the apartment nothing will be waiting for me there, except darkness, silence, and piercing cold.

“Please, come home. Don’t be there alone in the cold,” my parents told me. My dad suggested I go with his friend, who was also planning to leave Kyiv on January 9. I was hesitant at first: I had friends, plans, and work to do. But if I had been able to find ways to function with blackouts and distract myself before, this time I just couldn’t find the strength to bear it.

Myroslava: During the latest Russian attack on Friday, January 9, we immediately lost both electricity and heat. The boiler in the building runs on electricity, so it was clear that if there’s no power, there won’t be heat either.

At first I was calm; this was not the first time, and we’d get through it. But then Mayor Klitschko urged people to leave the city for the weekend, and that was alarming. The apartment was getting colder and colder.

My husband and I decided to go to his parents’ village to wait it out for the weekend, hoping that heat would return soon. On Sunday evening, we returned to Kyiv: heating had already come back in parts of the city. But not in ours. In the morning I took Ustym to my parents, where it was warmer, and went to work.

I dressed him in layers and held him close to share my warmth.

He seemed fine. It was I and even more so his grandparents who were truly scared.

I knew that we would only leave the Kyiv apartment at the most critical moment, when we had no strength left to endure. That’s exactly what happened on the last two nights–not only because my son woke up frequently, but also because of the cold, in which it was impossible to sleep. I was in warm pajamas, under a duvet and three blankets, surrounded by cats – and it still didn’t help.

I left for the Kyiv region on January 13th for my in-laws’ house, which has its own heating. The situation was so bad I couldn’t even wait for my husband to finish work. The frost had turned the roads into solid ice, and with darkness falling early, driving was dangerous. So my father-in-law drove out to pick up Ustym and me.

Nastia: As I was leaving Kyiv it was darker than usual – the blackouts had taken over the capital. Sorrow and the shame of leaving my own home kept me quiet and bitter in the taxi, but it changed when I met with my dad’s army friend; he cheered me up with conversations about life. The roads were covered with ice and snow.

That evening I got a message from my friend.

“I’ve never regretted more… the day I moved to Kyiv,” she said with an exhausted voice.

I often thought the same, but with the same thoughts I realized it was the best decision – it’s the city where I met most of my great friends, found work I love, and made plenty of great memories I want to keep until my last day.

For now I have to witness it from social media and news, or from my friends’ messages.

Energy workers are active around the clock. And they have been working under tremendous pressure for months. The brutal weather makes it much more difficult – just imagine working in the frost night and day, breaking through snow and ice to repair something, while Russia continues destroying more and more facilities.

DTEK, the country’s biggest private energy firm, posted on Threads: “It’s really difficult for us now. The damage from new big shellings is very serious. This was compounded by the severe weather we could all see outside our windows — the harshest winter in many years.”

Myroslava: The thought that we had to leave Kyiv hurts the most; it breaks me from the inside. I always saw the capital as a fortress, a place that must hold out under any conditions. In 2022, many Ukrainians stayed here even when the Russians stood on the outskirts of the city, because they believed Kyiv would be defended to the end. Now people are leaving not because of a military offensive, but because of the weather.

This is exactly what Russia wants – to make Kyiv unlivable, to break Ukrainians’ morale and force concessions. And they’re partially succeeding: home has stopped being a safe place.

That’s why visiting stores have become one of the most painful things for me. Supermarkets are a kind of marker of stability, an indication that tomorrow will still come. When they are open, it feels like life is still holding on.

But a few days ago, I saw a message that supermarkets in Kyiv were starting to close, including one near my home.

*The store is closed, and a sign to that effect hangs on the entrance, Kyiv, January 13th, 2026*

It stayed open at the start of the war, through heat, cold, and the blackouts of 2023.

And this time, it didn’t survive.

Nastіa: Leaving was difficult not only because it carried a sense of shame for giving up and escaping, while my friends and lots of other people had to stay and endure the cold.

But also it was hard to walk away from the places I love, not knowing how soon I’d be able to return. I don’t know how my apartment is now, or my favorite cafés and stores where I could go from my dark apartment to recharge my phone a bit.

I didn’t spend much time in the cold and blackouts after the latest attack, but it didn’t take long to feel its full effects. I was barely able to get myself out of bed; the indoor temperature had already plunged to about +10°C / 50°F.

And the rest of the time I spent dragging bottled water from the shop to clean up and take a shower before I could leave. At that point, I had no running water at all.

Myroslava: I miss my husband terribly, as he stayed in our Kyiv apartment. He works in Kyiv, and with this weather, regular trips aren’t realistic.

We’ve always done everything together, and now it feels like I’m without my main support. We text each other constantly. I send him photos of Ustym, and we wish each other good morning every day, trying to keep that closeness alive.

He has to keep the bathroom warm so the pipes don’t burst, otherwise the whole building could lose heat for the rest of winter. At –15°C outside, it’s frightening. He uses whatever he can: an oil radiator when there’s electricity, a gas heater when there isn’t.

Our cats, Stuhna and Sherri, stayed in the apartment. I constantly worry that they are cold, curling up and searching for any bit of warmth. They need to be fed and given water, and the rooms need to be kept warm. Every time I think about them, my heart tightens, because I left and they stayed behind.

The war has torn families apart on so many levels, and not just on the front lines. This winter brings a painful new wave of uncertainty and separation – endured not because people are giving up, but because they are forced to protect what matters most.

Editor’s note: The Counteroffensive team will continue to report from Kyiv, but we support any member of their team that wants to go back to their hometowns to be with their families. We also offered to take any member of the team to Warsaw for a week, at least until this blows over. They all refused to leave their country. I hope this shows, in some small sense, the grit, determination and courage of the small team I’m privileged to lead.

Source: Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova and Anatasiia Kryvoruchenko, “Why Myroslava, Nastia left Kyiv,” The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak, 21 January 2026. I am a paid subscriber to this publication and I would suggest that you subscribe to it too. ||||| TRR

(Anti)Fascism Today

Good morning,

My name is Brandon Siguenza, and I am a US citizen from Minneapolis. Yesterday, while doing legal observation, ICE stopped their cars to harass my friend and me. They sprayed pepper spray into the vent of our vehicle. We held our hands in the air and told them we were not obstructing, that the car was in park and they were free to drive forward and away. There was no active immigration raid. They returned to their cars, and drove forward a bit, then decided to stop again. They surrounded us, smashed the windows of our car, opened the doors (they were unlocked), ripped my friend and I out of the car and arrested us on charges of obstruction.

I was put in an unmarked SUV, separated from my friend. As I was put in the back seat an ICE agent tore the whistle off my neck and said “I’ll be taking this, I might need it later.” My phone was knocked out of my hand while being arrested. As we drove away I asked the driver and the passenger if they wouldn’t mind buckling my seatbelt, as they were driving erratically. I was ignored. I asked them if I could have the handcuffs loosened, as I was losing circulation, and was told no. At one point the passenger realized his own driver’s license was in the backseat next to mine, and tried to surreptitiously grab it without me seeing it.

We were taken to the Whipple federal building, where I saw dozens of brown people being processed in an unheated garage. I was frisked, told of my charges, and saw buses and vans being prepped. I later learned that these were being filled with detainees and driven to the airport for deportation. As we were led in, I noticed that the building was very busy. I got the impression that one of the 2 agents bringing me around was being trained. At multiple points throughout my stay, government agents were unable to open doors, not sure where they were meant to be going, and overall confused and overwhelmed. They couldn’t figure out how to use the building phones, or complained about a lack of cell service preventing them from checking the internet or making calls.

The people in the cells were extremely scared. We heard people screaming “let me out!”, crying, wailing and terrified screams. There were cells with as many as 8 people. I have no way of knowing how long they have been there, if they were allowed any contact with the outside world, or if they were being brought food or water. Most people were staring at the ground with almost no energy. I was not allowed to talk to anyone imprisoned. I distinctly remember seeing a desperate woman. She was staring at the ground with her head in her hands crying, hopeless, while her friend or family member sat on a bathroom seat observed by 3 men.

My friend and I were put in an area for “USCs,” which we eventually learned meant US citizens, separated by gender. We were imprisoned for 8 hours, during which my friend was never allowed a phone call. I was allowed to call my wife and tell her where I was. During my interview with Special Agent William and Special Agent Garcia, they asked me to empty my pockets. When I pulled out gloves, Agent William said those were meant to be taken when I was processed, and complained about having to fill out the form again. He frisked me once more, where he found glass in my pocket from when our car window was shattered. He filled out the form listing my personal items again, but put the wrong date. I was read my rights, I pleaded the fifth and was led back to my cell.

Food, water, and bathroom breaks were extremely difficult to acquire. I would ask over the intercom provided in the cell for a bathroom break, be told someone was on their way, then ask again 20 minutes later, be told someone was on their way, wait another 20 minutes, etc. Eventually they either turned off the intercom or it stopped working, because no one would respond. I could get water and bathroom breaks by pounding on the glass when someone happened to walk by and beg them directly. Hours would go by without anyone checking on us. I am vegan and the only food they offered were turkey sandwiches, fruit snacks with gelatin, and granola bars with honey. I eventually ate a granola bar out of hunger.

I was in the cell alone for between 1 and 2 hours, then another man was put into my cell, whose shirt was ripped open from his arrest, and an injured toe, who was carried aggressively into an unmarked car during his arrest. After about 4-5 hours, another man was brought in who had a cut on his head from his arrest. He told me he was tackled by 4 or 5 agents during his arrest. At no point was he offered medical assistance.

Later I was told that a lawyer was here to see me, and I was able to speak with him in a visitation room. The special agent told me that the door could not be closed all the way, so it was cracked during my interaction with my lawyer. I got the impression that they were not used to having lawyers present, and were trying to follow procedure as best they could. I asked an agent if the other detainees were allowed lawyers and was not answered.

At one point, 3 men from the department of Homeland Security Investigations brought me into a cell. They insinuated that they could help me out. After inquiring several times what exactly they meant they finally told me that they could offer undocumented family members of mine legal protection if I have any (I don’t), or money, in exchange for giving them the names of protest organizers, or undocumented persons. I was shocked, and told them no.

Finally, after hours of detention, I was told to follow an agent. At no point was I told whether or not I was being charged, or where I was going, but I was led out of the building. I asked if I could use a phone to call my wife to pick me up, and was told I could not. After pleading for several minutes eventually Special Agent William let me use his phone to call my wife. As I was escorted off the property by government agents, I was told to turn right. I was escorted to the protest area, where 5 minutes later, tear gas was deployed and I was struck by a paint ball gun. I was not protesting, I was simply being released without charges after an 8 hour detention. I was on the other side of the street, as instructed by the agents that released me and the agents shouting orders over a bullhorn. A passerby who was tear gassed was panicking and having an asthma attack, so I helped her find a medic to get her an inhaler. I used a stranger’s phone to co-ordinate pickup, and was picked up by my wife.

During my detention I knew that I was being released. I knew that as a citizen of the United States I have legal protection. The hundred or so other people being detained had no such protection. At this time I don’t need your help, it is the families that are being separated, abused, terrorized, harassed and killed that need your help. If this is happening to me, an American citizen born in the United States, then what is happening to the people in here that have no one calling lawyers on their behalf? That have no constitutional rights to due process? What is happening to the people that they will never be released to see their families, go to their jobs, or walk through their city ever again?

Please take care of yourselves, your family, and your community. I am safe and healthy, if you feel compelled to help, please offer your help to the Immigrant Defense Network at https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/. If you know someone detained by ICE, call or text CAIR-MN at 612-206-3360 for 24/7 legal intake.

Source: Brandon Siguenza (Facebook), 12 January 2025. Thanks to KFK for the heads-up.

KARE 11, “Taken by ICE & Detained | Breaking the News Plus”

What is it like in the Minneapolis ICE Detention Center? Patty O’Keefe & Brandon Siguenza join Jana to discuss their experience being detained for over 9 hours.

Source: KARE 11 (YouTube), 12 January 2026

In this week’s bulletin: Trade Union Confederation statement after January 9^th Russian attacks; statement by Ukraine Social Movement on Venezuela; captivity and oppression in the Russian-occupied territories; problems of the Russian economy; anti-war messages in Russian cities.

News from the territories occupied by Russia:

Ukrainian, abducted as a teenager from occupied Donbas in 2019, sentenced by Russian court to 22 years (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 9^th)

Ex-military and Ukrainian: No more needed for Russian ‘treason trials’ and massive sentences (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 9th)

The Face of Resistance: The Story of Crimean Tatar Political Prisoner Ismet Ibrahimov (Crimea Platform, January 9th)

‘Russian world’ in occupied Luhansk oblast: no heating and deliberately cut off from mobile telephones and Internet (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)

Desperate plea from Russian prison: Ukrainian political prisoners need to be freed now, not after ‘peace deal’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 7th)

Crimean Political Prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziev in Critical Condition (Crimea Platform, January 7th)

The Woman Who Didn’t Break. Part Two (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 6th)

Monstrous 27-year sentence against Ukrainian civilian abducted from Russian-occupied Melitopol (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 6th)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on January 6, 2026 (Crimea Platform, January 6th)

Even Putin supporter debunks Russia’s lies about a ‘Ukrainian drone attack on civilians’ in occupied Khorly (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 5th)

No answers & questions to Red Cross after Russia holds 64-year-old Melitopol journalist prisoner for third year (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 5th)

“You must not show that you are afraid”: Tales of captivity in the Kremlin-controlled “People’s Republics” (The Insider, January 5^th)

News from Ukraine:

Fire Point’s large missiles and contracts: the story of Ukraine’s most enigmatic defence company (Ukrainska Pravda, January 9^th)

More artists killed in Ukraine (The Artist, January 9^th)

Statement of the KVPU on the critical situation in Ukraine after January 9 Russian attacks (Ukraine Solidarity EU, January 9th)

‘Bro-wolfieʼ: The story of a soldier who survived in Mariupol and rebuilt his life (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)

All change: why Zelensky needs to reshuffle Budanov, Fedorov, Shmyhal, Maliuk and other top officials (Ukrainska Pravda, January 5^th)

Engineers, missile strikes and high technology: can Ukraine produce more weapons in 2026? (Ukrainska Pravda, January 4^th)

Denys, a unionised railway worker on the front line (International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggle, January 1^st)

War-related news from Russia:

Alexander Krichevsky of Izhevsk: Six Years in Prison for a Comment (Russian Reader, January 8^th)

The rise and fall of the “Heroes of the Surgut Land”. How the Russian state works with memory of soldiers who died in the war with Ukraine (Mediazona, January 7^th)

The streets speak. Anti-war messages in Russian cities (Mediazona, January 6^th)

Timofey Anufriev Dies Fighting for Ukraine (Russian Reader, January 6th)

On thinning ice: After almost four years of war, Russia’s central bankers are running out of tricks to keep the economy afloat (The Insider, January 6^th)

The Story of Gordey Nikitin: 17 Years for “High Treason” (Russian Reader, December 31st)

Analysis and comment:

Cedos held a discussion on the impact of research on policy change (Cedos, January 9^th)

Behind the Contact Line: How would the 20-point peace plan impact the millions of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation? (Meduza, January 9^th)

When Information Starts Working on Its Own (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)

From master spy to lead negotiator: what does Zelensky’s new chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, bring to the peace talks? (Meduza, January 8^th)

Women’s Careers in STEM: Barriers and Motivations (Cedos, January 7th)

The Non-Peaceful Atom (Posle Media, January 7^th)

Key challenges related to possible holding of an all-Ukrainian referendum on changes to Ukraine’s territory (Opora, January 5^th)

Social Movement: What’s wrong with US aggression against Venezuela? (Ukraine Solidarity EU, January 3rd)

International solidarity:

Ukrainian leaders in UK call for Kemi Badenoch to sack David Wolfson, Russian assets to be used to aid Ukraine (USC, January 8th)

Upcoming events:

Thursday 15^th January, at 7pm, Russia’s War On Ukraine, Us Strategy Review – Stopping The Authoritarians, organised by Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland, register here.

Thursday 5th February, at 6.30pm. Try Me For Treason reading and discussion event at Clore Lecture Theatre, Birkbeck College Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL. Details here.

This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. To receive it by email each Monday, email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.

Source: News from Ukraine Bulletin no. 178, 11 January 2026

Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”

On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”

“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”

Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.

“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires “being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.”

Notes:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=armytalks

War Department, “Army Talk 64: FASCISM!” March 24, 1945, at https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up

Source: Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 9 January 2026

Alexander Krichevsky of Izhevsk: Six Years in Prison for a Comment

In September 2024, Alexander Krichevsky, a 58-year-old resident of Izhevsk, posted a lengthy comment on a Chechen opposition blogger’s Telegram channel. In the comment, Krichevsky compared Putin and the “FSB clique” to a “darkness” which must be destroyed. The security forces deemed this statement incitement to murder the president and FSB officers. They monitored the man and intercepted his internet traffic. Last December, Krichevsky was detained and remanded in custody to a pretrial detention center despite his ailments and the fact that he is confined to a wheelchair. His ailing mother was placed in a care home, where she died a month later. Today, at the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg, where Krichevsky’s case is being heard, the prosecutor requested that he be given the maximum sentence of six years in prison.

“That is why we listen to him, because he is not afraid—he’s a ray of freedom in a kingdom of darkness! And only together will we destroy this darkness, only when we understand that we have only one enemy—Putin and his FSB clique. . . . Both you and we must destroy this enemy to continue living as peaceful neighbors,” 58-year-old Izhevsk resident Alexander Krichevsky wrote in a chat on the channel of opposition Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov aka Abu Saddam Shishani, on 11 September 2024.

This was Krichevsky’s response to a user who had asked Abdurakhmanov himself in a chat: “Tumso, aren’t you afraid that Kadyrov’s people might find you?”

When questioned in court, Krichevsky said that he was sure he was responding to the user personally, not writing in a public chat. He repeated many times that he had only figurative “destruction” in mind and had been trying to “reconcile” Abdurakhmanov’s readership by pointing out that they had only one enemy.

“Of course, I wasn’t even thinking about physically destroying such a large number of people and didn’t understand how [what I wrote] would even look. Apparently, my love for pretty words—all those rays of light and other nonsense—let me down. I was thinking in terms of games: when a person plays checkers or chess, they destroy their opponent’s pieces. Roughly speaking, that was the image I had in my head,” Krichevsky said in court.

The FSB operative who discovered Krichevsky’s comment saw it not as criticism alone, but also as a “public call to murder the president of the Russian Federation and officers of the Federal Security Service.”

The same conclusion was reached by Polina Komova, a philologist and expert at the Ministry of Internal Affairs Forensic Center in Udmurtia. She acknowledged in court that the word “destroy” could have other meanings “depending on the context,” but in her opinion it could be understood only in its literal meaning—that is, “to end [someone’s] existence, to exterminate”—in Krichevsky’s comment.

“He was planning a terrorist attack involving self-detonation”: wiretapping and arrest

The security forces began monitoring Krichevsky in early December 2024. It emerged in court that the FSB had requested data on his calls and connections from Rostelecom and learned that on 11 September, when he wrote the comment, he had accessed Telegram from home. Megafon provided the security forces with information about the base stations in the area where Krichevsky’s phone number pinged that day.

On 5 December 2024, the Supreme Court of Udmurtia gave the FSB permission to tap Krichevsky’s phones, and a few days later it approved “gathering information from technical communication channels and acquiring computer information.” A few days before Krichevsky’s arrest, operatives monitored his apartment to “document illegal activities.” The report states that Krichevsky did not leave his home.

On 19 December 2024, Krichevsky was detained and sent to a pretrial detention center. He described his arrest to journalists.

“There was a knock on the door at seven in the morning, and seven people came into [our] small flat: five FSB officers and two eyewitnesses. I opened the door myself. They immediately sat me down on a chair in the hallway. My ailing mother was lying there, barely alive. They said, ‘Can you hand over [your phone]?’ They tried to intimidate me once: ‘If you refuse, we’ll take you away and charge you with additional offenses.’ I realized that resistance was futile. I gave them the phone, and they looked at it and took what they needed.”

The social media comment charges against Krichevsky were accompanied by an FSB report containing much more serious, but in effect unproven, allegations. The document states that, according to “intelligence,” Krichevsky, who opposes the “state’s political course” and the conduct of the “special military operation,” supported radical Islamists fighting for Ukraine and was planning to convert to Islam and carry out a terrorist attack in Udmurtia “by blowing himself up with cooking gas.” The court never did hear what this report was based on.

“None of my comments or my own thoughts bear this out. When I heard this business about blowing myself up . . . In this case, everything that the prosecutor has just read aloud is pure speculation on the part of the investigators. None of my quotes corroborates it,” Krichevsky said in court.

Judge Alexander Raitsky simply reminded Krichevsky that the case centered on a single [social media] comment, which the defendant himself did not disput, and that the court would evaluate the evidence in the deliberation room.

The case file also contains another comment by Krichevsky from the same written exchange: “Many empires have collapsed in this world. I myself foresee the end of the Russkies [rusnya]. I don’t feel sorry for them: let them collapse with a bang. That’s where they belong. I myself hate these FSBniks, pigs [cops], and other scum who suck the blood of our homeland and shit on our neighbors.”

The security forces deemed this “a statement containing a negative assessment of the group of persons sharing the profession of Federal Security Service officers and police officers,” but it was not included in the indictment.

Responding to the judge’s question about this comment, Krichevsky said that he sometimes tried to “adapt” to the rude tone of the conversation [on the Telegram channel’s chat].

“My mother died four weeks after my arrest”: wheelchair-bound in a detention center

Krichevsky had worked as a systems administrator in Izhevsk before his arrest.

As a child, Krichevsky had moved with his family from Udmurtia to Rostov-on-Don. After high school, he enrolled in medical school, but in 1989 he broke his spine and had to drop out because his left leg was paralyzed and he had lost feeling in his right leg. After a long period of rehabilitation, he was able to walk again, but was unable to recover fully: he had a severe limp and had difficulty going up stairs.

Krichevsky said in court that his father had committed suicide on 11 September 2008.

“He had terminal cancer. He was in serious pain and turned to me because I was in medical school. He wanted me to tell him what poison he could use to commit suicide. I refused to do it. Then, two days before his death, I noticed he was sharpening a knife in an odd way. He died in a rather original way, if that word is appropriate in this situation—he stabbed himself in the heart with a knife,” Krichevsky told the court.

In early 2010, during a trip to Thailand, Krichevsky broke his left leg, which had been paralyzed since his [accident in 1989]. He underwent surgery at a local hospital, but he could not stay in hospital for long because his visa had expired. Krichevsky returned to his hometown of Izhevsk, where he underwent a second operation, but his condition only worsened.

“My knee wouldn’t straighten. They tried to do something about it, but because I had spinal injuries, my knee spasmed, and it remained crooked and they couldn’t do anything about it. And my hip didn’t recover either; I also had a fractured hip,” Krichevsky told the court.

Since then, Krichevsky has been confined to a wheelchair. Other ailments have also emerged: kidney problems, emphysema, and head tremors.

“I don’t know whether it’s early Parkinson’s combined with Alzheimer’s, or something else,” Krichevsky said.

Krichevsky had been living with his elderly mother and caring for her since 2016. Last year, she was hospitalized with a complex fracture. After she was discharged, she was unable to walk, and Krichevsky would help her to sit up and do breathing exercises in order to prevent pulmonary edema and bedsores. After Krichevsky was arrested, the woman was sent to a care home. She died of a pulmonary edema a month later.

“They apparently left her lying in bed at the care home. When a person lies in a horizontal position for a long time, they develop a pulmonary edema. That’s what my mother died of,” he said in court.

While in pretrial detention, Krichevsky formally lost his Group I disability status, which he had prior to his arrest, and so he was unable to obtain a medical examination.

According to Krichevsky, a neurologist at the Izhevsk detention center promised to send him to a hospital, but instead Krichevsky was transferred to another pretrial detention center. “I thought they were taking me to a hospital, but they took me first to Perm and then to Yekaterinburg. They basically lied to me when they said they were taking me to a hospital,” he said on the stand.

Krichevskny never did get any medical attention: “We’ll only help you if you’re dying, [they said.] Otherwise, just sit there and suffer.”

“Radical views and hostility toward the current government”: trial and pleadings

Krichevsky’s trial was postponed five times in a row: it took a long time to bring him in his wheelchair, first to Detention Center No. 1 in Yekaterinburg, and then to the court. He was brought to the hearings late, and had to spend four to five hours in the police van, where, according to Krichevsky, the temperature was the same as outside.

At the beginning of the trial, Krichevsky filed a motion requesting that he be assigned an inpatient forensic examination and treatment. He said that he had never been examined by a neurologist at the Yekaterinburg detention center, only by a GP. He was taken for examination to the local medical unit, which was not equipped for people with disabilities: there was a “big step” in front of the toilet and sink which he could not get over. As a result, the doctors only checked his reflexes and sent him back.

In their medical report, the doctors at the detention center stated that Krichevsky had no disability and that his overall health was satisfactory, meaning that he was able to take part in the court hearings.

Before the proceedings, Krichevsky again requested to be sent for treatment, “in accordance with the neurologist’s recommendation” in Izhevsk, but Judge Raitsky denied the request, seeing no need for it. Prosecutor Artem Terentyev also asked that the request be denied, as it went “beyond the scope of the criminal case under consideration.”

During the trial, the prosecutor asked that Krichevsky be imprisoned for six years in a medium-security penal colony. The prosecutor stressed that the defendant had “radical views” and was “hostile toward the current government of the Russian Federation and its officials,” and that he had written the offending comment at a time when the mobilization had not yet been completed. The prosecutor considered these to be aggravating circumstances.

The prosecutor cited Krichevsky’s “poor health” as a mitigating circumstance.

You can support Alexander by writing him a letter.

Address:
Russian Federation 620019 FKU SIZO-1, GUFSIN of Russia for the Sverdlovsk Region • Sverdlovsk Region, Yekaterinburg, Repin Street, 4 • Alexander Anatolyevich Krichevsky, born 1967

You can also send letters through the online service Zonatelecom.

Source: Vasily Besspalyi, “Wheelchair user from Izhevsk sentenced to six years in prison for comment about Putin; his mother, sent to nursing home after his arrest, dies a month later,” Mediazona, 22 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader. Since letters to Russian prisoners are vetted by prison censors, they must be written in Russian or translated into Russian, something that can done more or less handily using an online machine translator like Google Translate. Please write to me if you need help or advice. ||||| TRR

Timofey Anufriev Dies Fighting for Ukraine

The name of the beautiful young woman in this photo, taken a month ago in Odessa, is Katya, and she is the mother of a wonderful young man, Timofey Anufriev, a Russian passport holder who went to war to defend Ukraine. Today we received news that he has been killed. You can learn more about him in the film to which I’ve linked in the comments. And try to think hard about [the difference between mere] words and real actions… May the memory of the heroes live forever!

Source: Vitaliy Manski (Facebook), 6 January 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

The Insider, “‘War is like playing chess with death’: Confessions of a philosophy student from the RVC” (in Russian, no subtitles)

Until recently, 21-year-old Timofey Anufriev (son of the renowned artist Sergei Anufriev) was an ordinary university student in Petersburg. For over a year, though, he has been fighting for Ukraine in the ranks of RVC (Russian Volunteer Corps). Our film crew met with him in Kiev. Timofey talks about why he made this decision and about war and death in this report by The Insider.

Source: The Insider (YouTube), 20 March 2025. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader. There is an egregiously machine-translated and machine-dubbed version of this same film which can be viewed here. |||| TRR

[The] 22-year-old Russian-Ukrainian fighter Timofey ‘Aeneas‘ Anufriev was kіlled in action while defending his second homeland.

“Timofey participated in many of the Corps‘ operations: assaults, cleanups, and capturing prisoners. He lived and dіеd like a true knight and poet, in a blaze of fiery glory! <…> Forever in the RVC, forever in the ranks!” the Corps wrote on its Telegram channel.

Anufriev served as a stormtrooper and had the call sign ‘Enei’ [Aeneas]. He was awarded the medal ‘For Assistance to Military Intelligence of Ukraine.’

“The son of a well-known conceptual artist [Sergei Anufriev], born in Moscow and raised in Odesa, Enei regarded both Ukraine and Russia as countries close to him. Highly intelligent and well-educated, open and kind, he sought to contribute to the Corps not only in combat but also beyond the battlefield.

From an early age, Enei was familiar with the cultural circles of two capitals. Unlike the detached, insular segment of the artistic elite that exists removed from reality, he was deeply concerned about the fate of his people.

The outbreak of the war coincided with his first year at university in Saint Petersburg, where he studied philosophy and planned to become a public intellectual. He was disturbed by the way many around him in Russia pretended that nothing was happening. As a result, he decided first to leave the country and later to join the Russian Volunteer Corps.

“There is always a choice,” Enei believed—and he made one guided by his sense of honor. Throughout his combat service, he served as an assault infantryman, one of the most dangerous roles in war.

He took part in numerous operations, including assaults, clearing operations, and the capture of enemy personnel. He lived—and died—in accordance with his convictions.” wrote RVC on its nocturnal post.

Source: ukrainciaga.international (Instagram), 6 January 2025

The son of a famous conceptual artist, he was born in Moscow and grew up in Odessa. Aeneas considered Ukraine and Russia to be his home countries. An exceptionally intelligent and educated, open and kind person, he sought to benefit the Corps not only in battle, but also beyond it.

From childhood, Aeneas was familiar with the cultural bohemian scene of the two capitals, but he was not part of the abstract and “airy” artistic elite that exists detached from reality. On the contrary, he was deeply concerned about the fate of his people.

The war began during his first year at university in St. Petersburg, where he studied philosophy and planned to become a public philosopher. He was disgusted by the fact that many of his peers in the Russian Federation pretended that nothing was happening. Therefore, he decided to first leave Russia and then join the Russian Volunteer Corps.

“There is always a choice,” Eney believed, and he made a choice dictated by honor. He spent his entire military career as an assault soldier — the most dangerous job in the war.

He participated in many operations of the Corps: he stormed, cleared, and took prisoners. He lived and died like a true knight and poet, in the rays of fiery glory!

He was awarded the medal “For Assistance to Military Intelligence of Ukraine.”

Timofey “Aeneas” Anufriev

Forever in the RVC!
Forever in the ranks!

Source: Russian Volunteer Corps Eng (Telegram), 6 January 2026

The Story of Gordey Nikitin: 17 Years for “High Treason”

I am going to tell you about a political prisoner who seemingly no one has written about yet. I came across information about him quite by accident.

His name is Gordey Nikitin. Thirty-two years old and a native of Ryazan, Gordey worked at an oil refinery before his arrest. According to Gordey, he has been interested in politics and held opposition views since 2014. When the full-scale war [against Ukraine] broke out, Gordey went into shock. He was in this state of shock when he wrote several comments on Telegram.

As Gordey found out when reviewing the files in his criminal case, it was precisely because of these comments that, three years later, FSB officers would come after him, calling him on Telegram and introducing themselves as Ukrainian intelligence.

A few conversations with the “GUR” (actually, with the FSB) sufficed to charge him with and convict him of high treason and sentence him to seventeen (17) years in a maximum security penitentiary facility.

Gordey did not testify at his trial and he refused to make a closing statement to the court. He also did not bother to appeal the verdict, and so he will soon be transferred to a penal colony.

Gordey is currently being held in a remand prison in the town of Ryazhsk, Ryazan Region. He writes that the worst thing about the remand prison is the library: “Mostly third-rate military science fiction.” In the eight months he has spent in the prison, Gordey has only come across six decent books—by Remarque, Dostoevsky, and Chuck Palahniuk.

You can write a letter to Gordey. And if you use a digital service, a New Year’s miracle may occur, and he will receive the letter on January 30. In the worst case, it will arrive after the holidays.

Write to Gordey at the following address:

Russian Federation 391999 Ryazhsk, Ryazan Oblast • ul. Krasnaya, d. 1a, SIZO-2 • Nikitin Gordey Andreyevich (d.o.b. 28.09.1993)

You can also send letters through the online services F-Pismo, Zonatelecom, and PrisonMail.Online (the last should be used by foreign bankcard holders).

Source: Ivan Astashin (Facebook), 26 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader. Since letters to Russian prisoners are vetted by prison censors, they must be written in Russian or translated into Russian, something that can done more or less decently using an online machine translator like Google Translate. ||||| TRR

On 22 February [2023], scheduled tactical and drill exercises were held at Ryazhsk Remand Prison No. 2 (Ryazan Region, Russian Federal Penitentiary Service).

Remand prison staff practiced negotiating procedures, organizing combat groups, dealing with the aftermath of mass disobedience, and repelling attacks on the correctional facility.

The exercises were observed by Young Army cadets from Ryazhsk High School No. 3. Remand prison staff showed the kids their weapons and equipment. The boys and girls were able to try on bulletproof vests and hold automatic rifles and pistols. At the end of the tour, the schoolchildren were treated to hot porridge and tea.

“Today, the students got a closer look at the penal system,” said Alexei Ogurtsov, acting chief warden at Remand Prison No. 2. “Our staff demonstrated their professional skills, equipment, and weapons to the students and answered their questions. Perhaps some of them will choose to enlist in our service in the future.”

Source: “Ryazhsk Youth Army Visits Remand Prison,” Izdatelstvo “Pressa,” 24 February 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

“Try Me for Treason”: Londoners Stand in Solidarity with Imprisoned Opponents of Russia’s War in Ukraine

“Try me for treason. I betrayed your deranged state”, the Russian anti-war protester Andrei Trofimov told the Second Western District Military Court in May.

In 2023, Trofimov was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine in social media posts, and trying to join the Free Russia Legion that fights on Ukraine’s side. At that hearing, Trofimov said he hoped for Ukraine’s victory, and called president Putin “a dickhead”.

On the basis of that statement alone, he was further accused of “justifying terrorism” and defaming the Russian army. For those “crimes”, the judge at the hearing in May this year, Vadim Krasnov, added three years to Trofimov’s sentence.

Before sentencing, Trofimov told the court that he had not justified terrorism, but supported the Ukrainian armed forces’ legitimate military actions against aggression, and had not defamed the Russian army whose actions were unconstitutional and illegal. He told the court that he considered himself guilty of a much more serious crime: treason – taking the enemy’s side in war.

Excerpts from the speeches by Trofimov and three other anti-war protesters were read out in London last month, at a launch event for the book Voices Against Putin’s War: Protesters’ Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts. I said a few words about the book, which I edited.

Here’s a film of the event.

Ukraine Information Group, “Try Me For Treason (readings from anti-war protesters’ speeches in Russian courts),” 7 December 2025

And there will be another chance to hear these powerful readings in London – on Thursday 5 February 2026, 6:30 p.m., at Birkbeck College. Here are the details.

You can order copies of Voices Against Putin’s War, or download a free pdf, here.

We published the book against the background of repeated claims that a peace agreement is about to be signed between Russia and Ukraine. These are louder than ever after this week’s talks in Berlin. At the time of writing this, it is not clear to me that the Kremlin is really interested in stopping the war, or what the “security guarantees” being offered to Ukraine actually mean.

I would recommend following the excellent arguments made about the peace process by Oleksandr Kyselov (most recently here, also here and here), Hanna Perekhoda (who writes on Facebook here), and other Ukrainian socialist writers.

If you want to know why the 20% of Donbas that Ukraine still controls matters so much, this comment by the Institute for the Study of War is worth reading. This speech by Valery Zaluzhny helps us understand what the Ukrainian political elite thinks.

Whatever the outcome of the talks now in progress, if any, the defence of victims of Russia’s military occupation of Ukrainian territory, and domestic political repression, will remain a central issue for our movement, right across Europe.

Source: Simon Pirani, “Try Me for Treason,” People and Nature, 21 December 2025

A Documentary Film about Pavel Kushnir

Kushnir (2025), a film about the late pianist and antiwar protester Pavel Kushnir (in Russian and English, with subtitles)

Pavel Kushnir was a virtuoso pianist, a writer, and a courageous man whom the world discovered only too late. He died on July 27, 2024, in a Birobidzhan detention center following a dry hunger strike. The formal pretext for his arrest was a series of anti-war videos posted on a YouTube channel that had only 5 subscribers.

This film is an attempt to understand the man who played Rachmaninoff until his fingers bled, who dreamed of flying to Mars, who idolized Kurt Cobain, and who called the war by its true name while living in complete isolation.

We have gathered archival footage, previously unknown recordings of Pavel, fragments of his poignant cut-up novel, and memories from close friends and colleagues, including Clean Bandit soloist Grace Chatto, music expert Mikhail Kazinik, and publisher Dmitry Volchek. This is a story not just about a death in prison, but about an extraordinary life that became an act of art and resistance.

In this video:

Unique footage of Kushnir’s performances and artistic actions.

The story of an unmade avant-garde film and friendships with global stars.

The Birobidzhan Diary: a chronicle of loneliness and the fight against fascism.

Why a brilliant musician went unnoticed by the cultural establishment, but not by the prison system.

Source: VotVot (YouTube), 12 December 2025

Our film about the pianist Pavel Kushnir has dropped. […] Honestly, the film was ready to go in late April, but we spent a long while navigating the legal maze around the music, copyrights, and permissions. That was not even the main reason for the delay, though. I wanted to wait until the media hype had subsided and we could take a look at Pavel’s legacy from a certain historical distance, to talk about him not as a victim (although that viewpoint is legitimate, of course) but as a rebel whose choice was deliberate. Similarly, if you will, there are different takes on Christ: some view him as a needless victim who arouses pity, and the more maudlin that pity, paradoxically, the stronger their hatred for his crucifiers; while others see him as a rebel whose heroism was deliberate.

In my opinion, seeing Pavel as a pure “victim” robs him of agency, turning him into an extra in someone else’s play, in which the crucifiers have all the starring roles.

The film is based on Pavel’s own diaries. In terms of composition, I reprised the structure of his screenplay for the unmade film The Six Weary Ones. Three states of madness—prophetic madness, creative madness, and the madness of protest—figure as the three aspects of his personality. As in Joyce, each of Kushnir’s chapters has its own color and symbol. We have added music to these chapters. The music for the red chapter, “Prophet,” is by Rachmaninoff. Bach supplies the music for the blue chapter, “Creator”: blue stands for the heavens and the cosmos, and fugues are cosmic in nature. The third, black-and-white chapter, dealing with rebellion and Birobidzhan, is set to Scriabin’s Prometheus, a [tone] poem about the first rebel in history. Camus writes, in The Rebel, that rebellion confers agency on us, turning us from beasts into human beings. Again, it’s all in the eye of the beholder: some feel pity for Prometheus, chained and tortured by the eagle, while others see in him the power of the unbroken human spirit. And Scriabin’s idea of transforming all of humanity meshes perfectly with the cosmic utopia begun in the previous chapter. Prometheus: The Poem of Fire is a mystery play; as [Russian poet Konstantin] Balmont put it, it is “a vision of singing, falling moons, of musical stardoms, arabesques, hieroglyphs, and stones sculpted from sound.”

The film is chockablock with musical, literary and philosophical allusions which I won’t burden you with now. But if you’re interested, I’ll set up a cozy stream on my tiny Telegram channel where we’ll discuss the film and unpack its hidden layers, and I’ll answer your questions. You can write in the comments about whether this idea seems viable, and I’ll decide what to do based on your feedback.

Once again I want to thank everyone who did their part and helped commemorate a major artist. Thanks to you, we raised 1,185 euros and 533,954.51 rubles [approx. 5,800 euros], which is not just a large sum but a phenomenally large sum, considering that the major media practically ignored our fundraising campaign. That being said, many friends and former colleagues supported us by reposting [our fundraising appealing], which is eloquent testimony to the fact that a person and his reputation are more vital than any institution, and for this I am endlessly grateful to them.

The money we raised was enough for several full-fledged scouting trips and location shoots. Considering the geographical scope of our shoots, which included traveling to Birobidzhan itself, our grassroots war chest was emptied at some point. It became clear that without outside help we wouldn’t be able to complete the project properly, avoid devolving into a Skype interview format, and pay all the courageous artists, editors, and cameramen who had agreed to shoot a film in Russia at their own peril. I understood that asking folks for money again was not a good plan. So, after consulting with our small team, I accepted an offer from the online platform Votvot. They covered our remaining expenses and, most importantly, agreed to our condition that the film would be freely available. Our promises to our donors have not been broken: this grassroots film is being released in a way that is accessible to the grassroots—on YouTube.

I want to thank my friend and colleague Alexander Urzhanov from the bottom of my heart: he was quite emotionally invested in this film and provided us with his fabulous production resources. I would also like to thank all the folks at Narra: they have asked me not to name them, but you know who you are. Misha, Dasha, Ira, and Nastya, I couldn’t have done it without you and by myself! Particular thanks go to Boris Barabanov and Darina Lukutina from Votvot, without whom this film would scarcely have been possible.

I would like to thank Pavel’s relatives for permitting us to use his voice to read his diaries. Getting ahead of myself, I should say that this is the only digitally generated thing in the film. Everything else was filmed or recorded using analog methods: the diaries, the posters, and the drawings of a certain incomparable artists were all done without synthetics or computer glitz. All you see is life’s pleasant graininess.

I thank Pavel’s friends for sharing their archives and letters, as well as everyone who appears in this film.

I have one final request to you. Watch this film tomorrow. More to the point, share this film. I’m afraid that the film will get lost in the ruthless algorithmic desert without your reposts. May this film find everyone who needs it.

Source: Sergey Erzhenkov (Facebook), 12 December 2025. Thanks to Giuliano Vivaldi for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Pavel Kushnir was a classical pianist. But according to Russian authorities, he was also a dangerous dissident. In July 2024, he died on hunger strike in a remote prison in Far East Russia. Who was Pavel Kushnir, and why did he end up in jail? Liza Fokht from BBC Russian has been trying to piece together Pavel Kushnir’s story.

Source: Spotify

The Russian Opposition in Exile

This isn’t a show of unity but a photo montage from *La Stampa*: (left to right) Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kara-Murza all lay claim to leadership of the Russian opposition in exile and the Russian antiwar movement.

Vladimir Kara-Murza has resigned from the [Russian] Antiwar Committee after Garry Kasparov’s offensive outburst in Paris.

I was there when it happened.

What happened, exactly?

At a dinner before a morning meeting with the leadership of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Kasparov adopted a mobsterish tone with Kara-Murza, demanding to know why he would not sign the Berlin Declaration. Kara-Murza tried to respond constructively, explaining that he had been in prison when the Berlin Declaration was drafted.

“Aren’t you ashamed to say that you only served two years in prison, when there is a man here who served ten years?” Kasparov said, (referring to [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky. — A.G.).

To which the retort was: “Are you speaking as someone who fled Russia in 2013? As far as we know, you have served five days in jail in your entire life.”

At that point, Garry Kimovich lost it and started yelling that all true militants against Putin’s regime had left [Russia] and were fighting for Ukraine, rather than serving time in prisons.

“Why aren’t you fighting for Ukraine yourself, instead of serving time in a restaurant in Paris?” I asked.

“Why aren’t you fighting?” the chess player blurted out.

“But you’re a man, aren’t you?”

“I’m sixty-two years old!”

***

“You scoundrel!” Kasparov shouted at Kara-Murza. “Who got you out of prison?! I got you out! You’re not signing the Berlin Declaration because you can’t say that Crimea belongs to Ukraine!”

FYI: In 2014, after Kasparov had already emigrated, Kara-Murza declared that Crimea was part of Ukraine during an [anti-war] march in Moscow.

***

But here is the most “brilliant” thing the future member of PACE’s Russian platform said:

“Kara-Murza has a British passport, he swore allegiance to the Queen! But I haven’t sworn allegiance to anyone. I have a Croatian passport… just for traveling.”

He’s a traveler all right.

Croatian, my ass.

This was how PACE’s Russian platform was assembled.

Source: Alexandra Garmazhapova (Facebook), 12 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader

PACE has decided to create a Platform for Dialogue between the Assembly and Russian democratic forces in exile.

Participants in the platform – whose composition has yet to be decided, based on a set of criteria – would be able to hold two-way exchanges with the Assembly on issues of common concern. They would also be able to attend meetings of selected committees during part-sessions.

Unanimously approving a resolution based on a report by Eerik-Niiles Kross (Estonia, ALDE), the Assembly said participants in the platform would be “persons of the highest moral standing” who, among other conditions, all share Council of Europe values, unconditionally recognise Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and are working towards “regime change” in Russia.

The parliamentarians said the new platform – among other things – would help to strengthen the capacity of Russian democratic forces to “bring about sustainable democratic change in Russia and help achieve a lasting and just peace in Ukraine, alongside ensuring the responsibility of Russian actors for the international crimes committed”.

The Assembly said it honours the commitment of “those Russian human rights defenders, democratic forces, free media, and independent civil society who oppose the totalitarian and neo-imperialistic Russian regime, fight for democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and support Ukraine, sometimes at the risk of their lives and freedom”.

However, unlike Belarusian democratic forces, “Russian democratic forces do not have a single, unified political structure”, the Assembly pointed out. It encouraged Russian groups and initiatives in exile to join forces to advocate for democratic change in Russia, expose the crimes of the Russian regime and support Ukrainians.

Source: “PACE creates a ‘platform for dialogue’ with exiled Russian democratic forces,” Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 2 October 2025

On 1 October 2025, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution to establish a Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces (RDF). The initiative is intended to provide a framework for exchanges on issues of shared interest. The decision has sparked some controversy, which appears likely to grow.

A “Legitimate Alternative” Without Legitimacy

According to the report presented by the PACE General Rapporteur on RDF, Eerik-Niiles Kross, the Platform is designed to facilitate the participation of Russian opposition representatives in the Assembly’s activities. Approved candidates will form a delegation, gain access to committee meetings, and be able to address them. Yet the nomination procedure remains vague: Russian opposition groups are expected to reach a “common decision” on who will attend PACE sessions and then submit a candidate list to the President of the Assembly. This process is supposed to be completed by early next year.

The report describes Russian democratic forces as “a legitimate alternative to Putin’s regime.” However, the basis for such legitimacy remains unclear. Unlike the Belarusian opposition, which can point to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s electoral mandate from the 2020 presidential race, Russian opposition figures lack any comparable representative legitimacy. Strictly speaking, they represent no one but themselves.

PACE further specifies which actors it considers part of these “democratic forces”: structures associated with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov’s Free Russia Forum, Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Free Russia Foundation, as well as unspecified “representatives of the peoples of Russia.” The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), founded by Alexei Navalny, is also mentioned, but the report explicitly excludes it from the category of democratic forces. The reason given is that the FBK refused to sign the Berlin Declaration, defined by the rapporteur as a conditio sine qua non for cooperation with PACE. In response, FBK representatives reiterated their lack of interest in working with what they called a “talk shop for expressing concerns” and branded the report “rude and vile.”

Defining Democratic Credentials

However, it is not only about the FBK. Some influencers and activists who denounce Russia’s crimes in Ukraine refuse to sign the Berlin Declaration, viewing it not as a universal document, but rather as an act of swearing personal allegiance to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his Anti-War Committee, which drafted it. Even human rights defenders who did sign the Declaration question why it, in particular, has come to serve as the benchmark of democratic credentials. They regard its inclusion among the criteria for assessing the democratic legitimacy of a potential member as “odd,” since the Berlin Declaration represents “a private statement by one particular segment of the Russian opposition.”

Indeed, it is worth recalling that eight months before the Berlin Declaration, Alexei Navalny’s “15 Points”—a set of principles to which a significant number of Russian political activists still profess commitment—were published. These points outline similar foundations: ending hostilities and withdrawing Russian troops from the occupied territories, compensating Ukraine for the damage caused by the war, condemning imperial policies, committing to a European path of development, as well as dismantling the Putin regime and transforming Russia into a political system that would make the usurpation of power impossible. At the same time, both documents contain elements that appear puzzling. Notably, neither the Berlin Declaration nor Navalny’s 15 Points frames the war in Ukraine as Russia’s war, and both remain silent on the future of captive nations in Russia.

But even if one sets aside the questions raised by Navalnists as to why the “15 Points” are not adopted as the criterion of democratic legitimacy, how will PACE respond if other Russian opposition groups come up with similar declarations of their own?

Ukraine: Scepticism and Restrained Acceptance

Unsurprisingly, initiatives to create platforms involving Russian opposition figures within international organisations are viewed with deep scepticism in Ukraine. Most prominent Russian émigré politicians do not take part in armed resistance against the Putin regime, prefer to shift all responsibility for the invasion onto Putin personally, reject the idea of dismantling the Russian empire, and instead lobby for easing sanctions against “regular Russians.” Increasingly, they blame the west—rather than themselves—for the failure of democratisation in Russia. Nearly four years into the war, the exiled Russian opposition has proven largely irrelevant to Ukraine’s struggle against the invasion.

These arguments were strongly echoed by members of the Ukrainian delegation during the debate. Seven deputies took the floor. None opposed the resolution outright, but all signalled their distrust of the Russian political figures present in the chamber, stressing that they do not view them as a genuine opposition to Putin. Dialogue, they insisted, should be held only with Russians fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces and with representatives of captive nations.

Another concern raised was the lack of clarity in the procedure for determining Russian participants. The Ukrainian delegation succeeded in nearly doubling the criteria for candidate selection, but the Assembly rejected amendments that would have formalised Ukraine’s role in approving the list. This gave the impression that there is no genuine consensus within PACE on the establishment of the Platform for Dialogue with the RDF. As a result, some Assembly members began to doubt the wisdom of the initiative, suggesting that consultations with Russian opposition figures remain at the informal level.

Still, indirect signs suggest that communication between the PACE’s leadership and the Ukrainian delegation had taken place before the resolution was put to a vote. Notably, Ukrainian deputies refrained from openly torpedoing the resolution and instead largely abstained from the vote. Such restraint likely reflected a compromise, which may include the following items. First, the right of Ukraine to nominate representatives of Russian volunteer battalions serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, such as the Russian Volunteer Corps, which has already expressed willingness to join the Platform. Second, a commitment by PACE to establish a separate forum for indigenous peoples and national minorities of Russia, with one-third of seats on the current Platform reserved for them until that forum is created. Third, indirect Ukrainian involvement in controlling the Platform’s activities, possibly through performance indicators such as “feedback from Ukrainian civil society.”

Risks of Division Within the Platform

The creation of the Platform seems to carry potential risks for PACE while offering few tangible benefits. One of the key objectives declared by the resolution’s initiators is to foster greater unity among the highly fragmented Russian anti-Putin forces. In practice, however, it may have the opposite effect—further deepening and cementing the existing divisions among Russian diaspora political groups.

Besides, the inclusion of a diverse array of groups engaged in mutually irreconcilable conflicts raises the question of whether PACE can manage the level of potential tensions within the Platform itself. Frictions are likely to emerge between Russians fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces and well-known dissidents espousing pacifist convictions. Similarly, some Russian émigré politicians—despite condemning imperial policies—still advocate the armed suppression of any hypothetical secession by the North Caucasus. Such a position is unlikely to resonate with representatives of oppressed peoples, who view supporters of continued Russian control over their territories as foes.

It is also unclear whether PACE has a contingency plan should Ukrainian criticism intensify amid internal conflicts within the Platform. Such a scenario could place the Assembly in a difficult position, straining relations with Ukraine, a country whose citizens are dying daily for their independence and the values that the Council of Europe stands for. Were that to happen, the Platform would be remembered alongside PACE’s scandalous decision to restore the credentials of the Russian delegation in 2019 and the leadership’s attempts to shield its disgraced president, Pedro Agramunt—further damaging the Assembly’s image in Ukraine.

Defending his resolution proposal during the debate, Eerik-Niiles Kross drew a parallel with the Soviet occupation, noting that the Estonian diaspora played a vital role by representing the idea of an independent Estonia. By analogy, he argued, Russian democratic forces could play a similar role today, potentially producing their own Willy Brandt or Konrad Adenauer. The comparison, however, is not entirely accurate. Estonian émigrés did not enjoy a formal platform within PACE, but they still managed to convey their message effectively and ultimately saw it realised. Besides, the case of Germany clearly shows that it is not the establishment of a dialogue platform in Strasbourg that increases the chances of Russian Brandts and Adenauers emerging, but Ukraine’s victory on the battlefield. So far, there is scant evidence that prominent Russian emigrants have contributed anything of tangible significance to this cause.

Source: Igor Gretskiy, “Why PACE’s New Russian Platform May Backfire,” International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), 9 October 2025

Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces

In this darkest hour, we declare our strategic goals – to stop the aggression against Ukraine and create a free, rule of law based, federal Russia. To do this, we consider it necessary to strengthen the coordination of our actions.

We declare our commitment to the following fundamental positions:

The war against Ukraine is criminal. Russian troops must be withdrawn from all occupied territories. The internationally recognized borders of Russia must be restored; war criminals must be brought to justice and the victims of aggression must be compensated.
Putin’s regime is illegitimate and criminal. Therefore, it must be liquidated. We see Russia as a country in which the individual freedoms and rights are guaranteed, in which the usurpation of state power is eliminated.
The implementation of imperial policy within Russia and abroad is unacceptable.
Political prisoners in Russia and prisoners of war must be released, forcibly displaced persons must be allowed to return home, and abducted Ukrainian children must be returned to Ukraine.
We express our solidarity with those Russians who, despite the brutal repressions, have the courage to speak up from anti-Putin and anti-war positions, and with those tens of millions who refuse to participate in the crimes of the Putin’s regime.

The signatories of the Declaration share the values of a democratic society, respectful communication, recognize human rights and freedoms, the principles of diversity and equal rights, rejection of discrimination.

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

We call on the citizens of Russia to join this Declaration.

We commit to uphold this Declaration until our common strategic goals are achieved.

Berlin, April 30, 2023

Source: “Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces,” Russian Antiwar Committee, 30 April 2023

According to eyewitnesses who spoke to SOTA, the reason for Vladimir Kara-Murza’s departure from the “Anti-War Committee” today was an argument that took place in a restaurant where potential PACE delegation members were seated. The quarrel began with Garry Kasparov accusing Vladimir Kara-Murza of a lack of teamwork.

According to Kasparov, Kara-Murza deliberately brought Yulia Navalnaya and Ilya Yashin to meet the PACE President, bypassing the general meeting—despite neither of them having signed the Berlin Declaration, which implies support for Ukraine. It should be noted that the opposition will receive only 12 seats in PACE, 4 of which are allocated to “decolonizers.”

Alexandra Garmazhapova, who is close to “Free Russia” and heads the “Free Buryatia” foundation created under its protection, omitted the beginning of the conflict with “Free Russia” Vice-President Kara-Murza in her Facebook post.

According to the former journalist, “Kasparov started questioning Kara-Murza in a thuggish tone about why he had not signed the Berlin Declaration. Kara-Murza tried to respond constructively that he was in prison when work on the Berlin Declaration was underway.”

Meanwhile, Kara-Murza himself stated on X (formerly Twitter) today that he and his colleagues from “Free Russia” were allegedly ready to sign the declaration but did not explain why they have not done so yet.

Back in October, Kara-Murza had virtually refused to sign the declaration: “When the criterion for participation in the Russian democratic platform at PACE is signing a document that a significant number of people associate only with one specific political group—that, in my opinion, is a completely clear element of political manipulation, and it is strange, to say the least. Many colleagues feel the same way, including those who were here in Strasbourg last week at the PACE plenary session.”

The “political group” he referred to is the “Anti-War Committee,” which Kara-Murza only left today under the pretense of a conflict with Kasparov, who is only one of its participants.

Garmazhapova further reported that Kasparov accused Kara-Murza of having “only served two years” in prison, unlike Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Garmazhapova then intervened in the conflict on the side of her “Free Russia” colleague, asking why 62-year-old Kasparov is not on the front line but demands it of others.

It should be noted that Natalia Arno—head of “Free Russia”—and Ilya Yashin, who conducts his world tours with funds from this foundation, also joined the public conflict.

Arno stated that “G. Kasparov allowed monstrous insults directed at my colleague Vladimir Kara-Murza,” called it “dirty methods,” called Kara-Murza a hero, and Kasparov someone who fled Russia in 2013. Arno herself emigrated in 2012.

Ilya Yashin, on X, urged Kara-Murza to believe that “he is there for him.”

Thus, the conflict for leadership in PACE between Khodorkovsky and Kara-Murza, as Arno’s protégé, which SOTA previously wrote about, became public today: Kara-Murza’s self-removal from the “Anti-War Committee,” despite the formal conflict with Kasparov—who is only one of its members—only highlighted the brewing contradictions and “intrigues” that Kasparov had mentioned.

Source: “‘Free Russia’ vs. ‘Anti-War Committee’: What Happened Between Kasparov and Kara-Murza,” Sota News (X), 12 December 2025