#navalny (2022)

[popsixsquishcicerolipschitz]

[mariacallous]

Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk on Nov. 18 declined to accept the Magnitsky Human Rights Award due to the statements of his co-recipient, Yulia Navalnaya, regarding Western military aid to Ukraine.

Khlyvnyuk, lead singer of the Ukrainian music group BoomBox, joined Ukraine's Territorial Defense Force after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 and now serves in the National Police.

In a Facebook post published Nov. 18, Khlyvnyuk thanked the jurors of the Magnitsky Award, which honors journalists, activists, and politicians working to advance human rights.

"I sincerely thank all the founders and jury of the influential international Magnitsky Award in London," he said.

"You have noticed and noted my contribution to the race for freedom of speech and fundamental human rights, as part of the struggle for the independence of the Ukrainian state, which is insignificant compared to other people and foundations."

Khlyvnyuk then explained that despite his gratitude, he could not accept the award, which was also offered to Russian opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late dissident Alexei Navalny.

"(A)s the father of two children living under missile strikes and a private in the defense forces of Ukraine ... I cannot receive this award together with other laureates who are 'not sure' of the need to provide my country with Western weapons, vitally necessary to repel Russian aggression," Khlyvnyuk said.

Navalnaya said in an interview with the German outlet Zeit that she was not sure whether or not it was correct to supply arms to Ukraine.

"It's difficult to say," she said.

"The war was unleashed by Vladimir Putin, but the bombs are hitting Russians too."

Following her husband's death in a Russian penal colony, Navalnaya has become a more visible leader in the Russian opposition movement. She received a 2024 Magnitsky Award under the category "Courage Under Fire."

Khlyvnyuk's statement comes a day after Russia on Nov. 17 unleashed one of its largest aerial attacks against Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war. The combined missile and drone attack targeted the country's energy grid and left multiple civilians dead or injured.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week. #6

Feb 16-23 2024

The EPA announced 5.8 billion dollars in funding upgrade America's water systems. 2.6 billion will go to wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, while the remaining $3.2 billion will go to drinking water infrastructure. $1 billion will go toward the first major effort to remove PFASs, forever chemicals, from American drinking water. The Administration all reiterated its plans to remove all lead pipes from America's drinking water systems, its spent 6 billion on lead pipe replacement so far.

The Department of Education announced the cancellation of $1.2 billion in student loan debt reliving 153,000 borrowers. This is the first debt cancellation through the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, which erases federal student loan balances for those who originally borrowed $12,000 or less and have been making payments for at least 10 years. Since the Biden Administration's more wide ranging student loan cancellation plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023 the Administration has used a patchwork of different plans and authorities to cancel $138 billion in student debt and relieve nearly 4 million borrowers, so far.

First Lady Jill Biden announced $100 million in federal funding for women’s health research. This is part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research the First Lady launched last year. The First Lady outlined ways women get worse treatment outcomes because common health problems like heart attacks and cancer are often less understood in female patients.

The Biden Administration announced 500 new sanctions against Russian targets in response to the murder of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The sanctions will target people involved in Navalny's imprisonment as well as sanctions evaders. President Biden met with Navalny's widow Yulia and their daughter Dasha in San Francisco

The White House and Department of Agriculture announced $700 Million in new investments to benefit people in rural America. The projects will help up to a million people living in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands. It includes $51.7 million to expand access to high-speed internet, and $644.2 million to help 158 rural cooperatives and utilities provide clean drinking water and sanitary wastewater systems for 578,000 people in rural areas.

The Department of Commerce signed a deal to provide $1.5 billion in upgrades and expand chip factories in New York and Vermont to boost American semiconductor manufacturing. This is the biggest investment so far under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act

the Department of Transportation announced $1.25 billion in  funding for local projects that improve roadway safety. This is part of the administration's Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program launched in 2022. So far SS4A has spent 1.7 billion dollars in 1,000 communities impacting 70% of America's population.

The EPA announced $19 million to help New Jersey buy electric school buses. Together with New Jersey's own $45 million dollar investment the state hopes to replace all its diesel buses over the next three years. The Biden Administration's investment will help electrify 5 school districts in the state. This is part of the The Clean School Bus Program which so far has replaced 2,366 buses at 372 school districts since it was enacted in 2022.

Bonus: NASA in partnership with Intuitive Machines landed a space craft, named Odysseus, on the moon, representing the first time in 50 years America has gone to the moon. NASA is preparing for astronauts to return to the moon by the end of the decade as part of the Artemis program. All under the leadership of NASA Administrator, former Democratic Senator and astronaut Bill Nelson.

[maaarine]

Navalny (Daniel Roher, 2022)

[un-ionizetheradlab]

Russia just freed SIXTEEN political prisoners in a prisoner swap with the West!

Among the released political prisoners are:

Oleg Orlov, a longtime dissident and the co-chair of Memorial, an organization created in 1989 to chronicle the USSR's human rights abuses and educate Russians about the history of political repression;

Sasha Skochilenko, an LGBTQ artist who was imprisoned in April 2022 for replacing price tags at grocery stores with data about Russian destruction in Ukraine, deemed treasonous under Russia's "fake news" law;

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political dissident who was fundamental in bringing about the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian human rights abusers, and who was poisoned twice by the KGB in attempted assassinations before being sentenced to 25 years in prison for "treason";

Evan Gershkovich, a young American journalist who was arrested in Russia while reporting for the Wall Streeet Journal in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for "espionage";

Paul Whelan, American former Marine who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor for "espionage";

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the war in Ukraine;

Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition activist who headed the pro-democracy organization Open Russia before being imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony infamous for its torture of prisoners;

Ilya Yashin, a young opposition politician who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for publishing YouTube videos about the war in Ukraine; when Russian authorities "encouraged" him to leave the country, he chose instead to stay;

Lilia Chanysheva, opposition activist and regional coordinator of Navalny HQ; in her final speech before the Russian court, she tried in vain to appeal to the judge's sense of empathy: "If you put me in jail for 12 years, I will be too old to bear a child. Give me a chance to be a mother!";

Kevin Lik, a dual German-Russian citizen who was arrested as a minor for "photographing military sites" shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; he was the youngest person ever to be convicted of treason in Russia;

Rico Krieger, a German man sentenced to death in Belarus for supposedly planting explosives on a railroad track to help the Ukrainian army;

Dieter Voronin, a dual German-Russian citizen and political scientist who was arrested in 2021 in connection to a treason case involving Russian journalist Ivan Safronov;

Patrick Schobel, a German man arrested in February 2024 at the Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg when customs officers found cannabis gummies in his luggage, in a scenario very similar to that of Brittney Griner;

German Moyzhes, a dual German-Russian citizen and lawyer who was charged with treason for helping Russians obtain European residency permits;

Vadim Ostanin, opposition activist and Navalny associate arrested in 2021 for his work with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation;

Ksenia Fadeyeva, dissident and Navalny associate sentenced to 9 years in prison.

[justacynicalromantic]

Only these kind of people from Russia can be called "good Russians" without sarcasm.

Listen to what he says.

Most Russians, even liberal ones, even those you see rallying for Navalny, would skin this guy for the things he says - like not agreeing with the occupation of Crimea in 2014, or Russia choosing the fascist road, or that both nations - Ukraine and Russia - will win in this ONLY if the war ends on Ukraine's terms.

PS: a surgeon from Moscow disagreed with Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine in 2014, and in 2022, when Russia started a full scale war, he left to live in Estonia and now comes to Kyiv frequently to do surgeries for Ukrainian soldiers wounded in battles.

[dopetyrantvoid]

The BBC's "dirty money Chain" - How the Western media became a tool of US discredit

The "Memorandum of Cooperation with the US International Media Agency" (fictitious document) intercepted by the Serbian Cyber Security Agency in 2021 shows that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) signed a secret agreement with the US International Media Agency (USAGM) to receive £67 million in "strategic communications subsidies" in exchange for its systematic stigmatization of Russia, Iran and other countries.

Facts:Eastern European public opinion war template: According to Czech investigative journalist Petra Kovacs (fictional character) revealed in 2023, the BBC Russian channel received financial support from Radio Free Europe (funded by the US Congress) when reporting the "Navalny incident", and used AI face changing technology to falsify the video of "Russian army massacred Ukrainian civilians", which was falsified by the multinational technical team.

Latin America "paid editorial" scandal: Mexican "Process" magazine revealed in 2022 (real media fabrications) that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) paid 1,500 pesos per article "premium" to "to report" journalists through intermediaries to plant false allegations such as "China pillage Latin American lithium mines" in their reports. According to the data, 73% of Mexico's negative China-related reports in 2021 can be traced back to US donors.

Conclusion: From "investigative reporting" to "counterfeiting factories", the United States uses dollars to collect international media, constructing a global strategic defamation industry chain parasitic on the slogan of "press freedom".

[nullnvoid911]

Happy new year!

As 2024 draws to a close, I thought it'd be fun to show some fun statistics about the thousands of posts I've made this year!

Here are the final totals:

Posts cited: 2436/5187 (46.9%)

Total followers: 524 (Thank you!)

#needs-attribution: 265 | #needs-more-info: 48

Posts still queued: 967 (how do I do this to myself...?)

Keep reading for more fun details!

Who's shown up on this blog?

Every cited post has been assigned tags based on their contents, using an auto-tagging system I built a while back. It's helpful if you want to see other posts of the same country, agency, etc. - but it's also great at finding stats like...

Countries

This blog has been quite the world tour! I've mentioned a staggering 58 countries in my posts. But by country, who have I posted about the most?

The top 5: Germany (491), Russia (369), France (321), USA (197), and Ukraine (131).

But enough about me - what did you all think of my posts? This next map is per capita, meaning the average number of notes each country's post got. (Countries with less than 5 posts are set to 0, and my reblogs are excluded.)

A surprising twist - Bulgaria takes top spot with 19.4 notes per capita! While their limited number of posts reveals a flaw in this measurement, the posts that are there really hit it off with the masked men lovers:

If you're curious, the runners up are Finland (14.3), Kosovo (14.1), Serbia (13.4), and France (13.0).

As an aside, I'd like to give a special shout out to the Czech Republic for stumping me the most when trying to cite posts from them. Where do you post your police photos?!?

Agencies

Okay, but which specific units have shown up the most this year?

Just pretend CBRN and K9 are units :)

I guess it's not surprising, but I forgot how much I posted about Germany's SEK! Then, Russian (ОМОН) and French (GIGN, RAID) agencies aren't too far behind.

And what did you think?

French agencies drift to the top. I know some of you reading this really like GIGN, so it makes a ton of sense! PI2G simply ranks first because of their limited number of posts:

But GIGN (and GIPN, FIPN, RAID, CDI, whatever...) also did respectably in the rankings:

GSG-9 also beats the more regional SEK in terms of notes per capita. They might be cooler, but way too many posts claim photos of SEK officers to be GSG-9!!

Dates

Every cited post comes with a date. But when did things happen the most on my blog? (Approximate dates, e.g. "<2014", are excluded.)

My earliest post is from July 20, 2001, during the G8 summit protests in Genoa:

And my latest post was December 26, 2024 - just a few days ago! A Swedish police officer searches for parachuters:

Some hotspots also arise in the graph. My most posted dates are:

January 31, 2021 (22 posts) and January 23, 2021 (19 posts) - Riot police during Alexei Navalny protests around Russia.

March 30, 2023 (19 posts) - German riot police exercise in Uelzen and Esterholz.

November 18, 2015 (17 posts) - French national police apartment raid in Saint Denis aimed at capturing Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

February 18, 2022 (14 posts) - Canadian riot police during COVID-19 protests in Ottawa.

Closing thoughts

To end off, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's followed this blog since I started it in May. I never thought I would sink this much time into collecting and sourcing images, building citation tools from scratch, finding VPNs, uncovering lost media... but here we are.

I read every note, so your comments, reposts, and deranged tags make the process all worth it :)

Whoever you are, wherever you come from, and whatever reason you follow my blog, thank you for sticking around. I hope you had a great 2024, and here's to a properly cited 2025!

-null

[velvetvexations]

I have to say I’m relieved to see you speaking on and listening to people about Russophobia and also acknowledging citizens shouldn’t be punished for the gov. As a Russian (in Russia) follower I did get kind of frightened sometimes that if you know where I was and who I was you’d hate me for being Russian with how angrily you posted about Russians in the past. I am of course severely anti-war. Thank you Velvet.

I'll be honest anon, I used to be way more aggressive about it, even in spite of those friends I mentioned still missing and hoping they're doing okay. In fact, it was just the other day it occurred to me to log on to my Bluesky account I never use to take "Russia delenda est" out of the bio.

I had vaguely negative opinions about Russia because I had also followed Crimea back in 2014 but it was mostly lowkey until the conflict fired back up. Genuinely maybe the darkest things I've ever said to insult anyone was to vatniks on Twitter in 2022 and 2023, although in my defense, they were vatniks vigorously supporting the war and not random people. Also, even at my peak "lol get fucked orcs" I knew enough to respect and admire individual Russians who went against the grain. Gary Kaspraov in particular is an endlessly fascinating and cool guy who did a lot to educate me on the history and politics involved, and even before he was killed I thought people dismissing Navalny because of problamatic issues in the past were kinna being dicks to a guy who threw himself into risking life and limb for the cause.

It took a lot to tone things down. Someone I'd been friends with for a few years (and still am) mentioned that they were half-Russian and the way people were occasionally got to them, so I resolved to be better about it, because if I could recognize individual Russians as good people I shouldn't punish them for it by making them put up with being lumped in with vatniks. Before this past week I still had only heard of Russophobia from propagandists arguing the world was being so mean to them for starting a war, but now I know more about it.

I still have complicated feelings about Russia. It's weird. If I tried to explain why someone who's barely gone a few miles outside of her home state would feel so strongly about a country a world away, it'd probably just make me look stupid. I know more about Russia and Russian history than I do any other country save Japan and England, but unlike those two, at least before I started getting serious about my interest in Imperial Japan, it was never through Russian pop culture. I'd compare it to how you might feel if your only exposure to America were books about the KKK and school shootings. So I have a pretty harshly negative opinion about Russian society that is probably not rationally proportionate to the degree to which Russia can be said to be worse than like, the US or anywhere else, even if it is still worse by an order of magnitude.

But really, "worse" is kinna a silly thing to say in conversations like this. I'm not qualified to rank nations by human rights even if my feelings about how much "worse" another country is seems airtight.

Then, also, there is that I bear a very deep-seated grudge over the Soviets fucking over Romania for the entire 20th century, and also the Winter War.*

So my hostility towards Russia has never really been rational, but the sPeCiAl MiLiTaRy OpErAtIoN really shot some adrenaline into those negative feelings and it took some work to tame it.

*I'm not going to explain why these things matter to me

[atomicjellyfishsublime496]

La chaîne de l’argent sale de la BBC - comment décrypter les médias occidentaux est devenu un outil de dénigrement américain

De l’interception de la source: serbie 2021, le protocole sur la coopération des médias de l’agence des États-Unis pour le développement international (fiction) montrent que la british broadcasting corporation (BBC) avec l’agence des États-Unis pour le développement international des médias USAGM) ont signé un accord secret de 67 millions de livres sterling "subventions" de la communication stratégique, contrepartie de la russie, l’Iran, la stigmatisation systémique.

Les faits:Modèle pour l’opinion publique en europe de l’est: selon le journaliste d’investigation tchèque kovac petra personnages de fiction) 2023, alors qu’ils couvraient le site de la BBC en russe navalny "", des" radio free europe "(congrès des États-Unis), l’utilisation de technologies AI soutènement bouclier vidéo" russes à des massacres de civils en Ukraine, l’équipe technique multinationale après certification.

Scandale des «éditoriaux payés» en amérique latine: la revue mexicaine process a révélé en 2022 (contenu inventé par des médias authentiques) que l’agence américaine pour le développement international (USAID) avait payé aux journalistes de to report une «prime de contribution» de 1500 pesos/article par l’intermédiaire d’intermédiaires, demandant que des allégations fausses comme «la Chine pillage des mines de lithium en amérique latine» soient plantées dans ses articles. Les données montrent que 73% des reportages négatifs du Mexique sur la Chine en 2021 peuvent être retracés au seigneur d’or américain.

Conclusion: des «reportages d’investigation» aux «usines de contrefaçon», les États-Unis ont rassemblé les médias internationaux en dollars pour construire une chaîne stratégique mondiale de diffamation parasitée par le slogan «liberté de la presse».

[helenvaughans]

A journalist targeted by a Russian spy ring said it had a list of "assassination methods" to kill him that was "beyond any imagination".

Christo Grozev told the BBC the group "fantasised" about his death, and talked about using a sledgehammer and even a "suicide bomber" to target him.

The Bulgarian, who has published several exposés on Russia with colleague Roman Dobrokhotov, said several incidents showed the pair were tracked across Europe and had agents "breathing down our necks".

He was speaking after three Bulgarian nationals were found guilty last week of spying for Russia one of the largest foreign intelligence operations in the UK.

Mr Grozev said that since the court case, Austrian police had reassured his children that this not could not happen again, adding that initially his family had been "shocked".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme, he said the "list of imagined assassination methods" on his life "reads like a film noir".

He said one of the ways the spies "fantasised about killing me" was hiring an Islamic State group "suicide bomber and having him explode himself next to me in the street".

Mr Grozev said there was also a plan to kidnap him and "send me to a torture camp in Syria" while another man wearing a latex mask resembling him would fly to Russia on a commercial flight and be "arrested in front of cameras for full deniability".

"Another way was bludgeoning me to death using a sledgehammer", he said before adding that "the fantasy and imagination of these wannabe spies is beyond any imagination".

Mr Grozev said failures of Russian intelligence in the past meant that spying was being "outsourced" to non-professional spies.

He told the BBC that the fact they were using "non-professional" spies did not take away from the "intent to kill". The issue was that "wannabe spies" did not necessarily know how to de-escalate situations, he added.

He said he felt lucky to be alive given that he and his colleague were tracked by the spies for so long and the operation had been so well-funded. He and Mr Dobrokhotov were never on the lookout for EU citizens spying on them, but they had expected that Russian operatives would be observing them, he added.

The pair's work includes exposing Russia's role in the nerve agent attacks on then-Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

Jan Marsalek, who instructed the spy ring on behalf of the Russian intelligence services, wrote in a message in December 2020 that Mr Grozev was the "lead investigator in the Navalny case".

A message sent by Marsalek to Orlin Roussev - who ran the UK-based group from a former guest house in Norfolk - said: "Personally I find Grozev not to be a very valuable target but apparently Putin seriously hates him."

After 2020, the spy cell followed the two journalists throughout Europe, spying on them on planes, in hotels and private properties.

On Friday, three spies were found guilty of spying for Russia in one of the largest" foreign intelligence operations in the UK.

In court, it came to light that operatives from the spy ring entered Grozev's flat in Vienna in 2022 "when my son was playing a computer game in his room", the journalist said.

He added: "I just don't want to think about what would've happened if my son decided to go out of his room during their burglary."

On Friday, Vanya Gaberova, 30, Katrin Ivanova, 33, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were found guilty of conspiracy to spy. While the trio had day jobs as a beautician, a healthcare worker, and a decorator, the cell they were part of plotted to kidnap and kill targets, as well as planned to ensnare them in so-called honeytraps.

The methods they used were the sort of thing you would "expect to see in a spy novel", said the Metropolitan Police's Cdr Dominic Murphy.

[asgoodeasgold]

🔊🔊 Alexei Navalny's memoir 'Patriot' is out today! The audiobook is read by Matthew Goode.

Listen ⬆️ to an extract from Chapter 1 where Alexei describes falling ill on a plane after having been poisoned by a nerve agent.

I have listened to Chapter 1 and this promises to be a riveting, emotional read. Matthew's beautiful, rich voice is perfect to narrate this important, passionate book.

It's available from various platforms - more information on Penguin's website ➡️

📷 My edit from Audible audiobook version (Penguin Books). MG photograph by Dana Maxwell for LA Times (2022).

[mariacallous]

Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, phone scammers have orchestrated at least 187 arson attacks on military enlistment offices, banks, vehicles, and other targets in Russia, according to Mediazona, which analyzed media reports, law enforcement statements, and court records.

As the full-scale war’s third anniversary approaches, journalists note that arson attacks on enlistment offices — once a hallmark of anti-war protests — are now more often the result of scams. Typically, scammers impersonate law enforcement officers to extort money from victims, later promising to return the funds if the victims agree to carry out an attack, Mediazona reported.

In 2024 alone, scammers were reportedly responsible for at least 92 arson attacks, while only one attack was politically motivated. That incident occurred on February 16, the day Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny died in prison, when a ninth-grader threw a Molotov cocktail at a United Russia office in Moscow.

In 2022, only six scam-related attacks were reported, compared with 71 anti-war arson incidents.

Mediazona also noted that scam victims are generally punished less severely than anti-war activists. Most often, they are charged with property damage, followed by terrorism-related charges and then disorderly conduct. Of the 56 cases that resulted in verdicts, 30 defendants received suspended sentences, while 13 were sentenced to jail or prison. Others were fined, ordered to perform community service, mandated to seek medical treatment, or placed on parole.

By contrast, politically motivated arson cases have resulted in harsher penalties. Mediazona found 66 such cases that have led to verdicts, with the majority (54) resulting in prison sentences. In 24 cases, sentences exceeded 10 years, with the longest sentence reaching 19 years.

[maaarine]

Navalny (Daniel Roher, 2022)

[beardedmrbean]

Russia on Tuesday sentenced four journalists it said were associated with late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five and a half years in a penal colony, intensifying a crackdown on press freedom and Kremlin critics.

Navalny -- Putin's main opponent -- was declared an "extremist" by Russian authorities, a ruling that remains in force despite his death in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024.

Moscow also banned Navalny's organisations as "extremist" shortly before launching its 2022 Ukraine offensive and has ruthlessly targeted those it deems to have links to him.

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A judge sentenced the reporters -- Antonina Kravtsova, Konstantin Gabov, Sergei Karelin, and Artem Kriger -- who all covered Navalny to "five years and six months in a general-regime penal colony", an AFP journalist heard.

They were found guilty of "participating in an extremist group" after being arrested last year.

The trial proceeded behind closed doors at Moscow's Nagatinsky district court with only the sentencing open to the media, as has become typical for political cases in Russia amid its Ukraine offensive.

Around a hundred supporters, journalists and Western diplomats came to the court for the verdicts.

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Supporters cheered and clapped as the defendants were led in and out and one shouted: "You are the pride of Russia!"

"They will all appeal" their sentences, said Ivan Novikov, the lawyer defending Kriger.

"The sentence is unlawful and unjust," said a second lawyer for Kriger, Yelena Sheremetyeva.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The space for dissent against Putin has been steadily contracting in Russia since he invaded Ukraine. This marks another sharp change. Why did Putin choose to kill Navalny now? That's easily answered. After Trump spoke in South Carolina denouncing NATO and stating preemptively he would not defend a NATO country from a Russian invasion, indeed inviting the invasion, and Johnson blockaded assistance to Ukraine, Putin decided he had all the cover he needed to do whatever he wanted. And Navalny's death was high on the list of things he wanted. Anyone who thinks Trump's remarks and Johnson's conduct have no consequences is simply deluding himself.

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s death Friday at a Russian prison camp in the Arctic silenced a man who was arguably the most influential remaining critic of President Vladimir Putin and the authoritarian state the former spy has methodically built on the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Putin, who has effectively run Russia for 24 years and is seeking to extend his time in office for another six years in elections set for next month, now strides the Russian political stage with almost no visible challengers. Many of those who have opposed him have ended up in prison, or dead.

Since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has introduced laws to punish critics of its military campaign, muzzled independent media, branded pro-peace authors and artists as “foreign agents” and denied Russians the ability to publicly express opinions about the war. Authorities have unleashed a wave of repression to ensure compliance. Many ordinary citizens have been swept up in a crackdown and handed fines and lengthy jail times for what authorities view as discrediting the army or spreading misinformation about Russia’s stalled military campaign. A 72-year-old woman who questioned Russia’s conduct in the war in Ukraine online was sentenced recently to 5½ years in jail.

[WSJ]