Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/31/russia-is-persecuting-dissenters-by-taking-away-their-children

by MoSattler • 3 years ago

227 304 3 years ago

MoSattler• 3 years ago

anovikov5• 3 years ago

It will continue for as long as it will take the world to realise that problem with Russia, is Russia itself, and it needs to be comprehensively fixed.

amelius• 3 years ago

Russia -> some people in Russia

willeh• 3 years ago

I don't mean to be rude but certain aspects of Russian Culture make authoritarian rule inevitable. Some of has to do with Orthodox religious values and some of it has to do with perceived misrule of the country in times where things were more free.

WinstonSmith84• 3 years ago

some people in Russia -> many people in Russia

Very few people disagree with the current state of affairs, it's "1984" with people just believing in whatever is being told to them. I'm saying this cause I've some distant families there, it's absolutely surreal. Either way, if you don't fall in line, you better leave the country (try to), or at best remain very, very quiet and keep your thoughts for yourself.

esarbe8• 3 years ago

Putin has had high approval ratings for years. Not only because they clamped down on any opposition, but also because Russians simply don't care.

This is not just a "Putin" problem.

thejackgoode• 3 years ago

Russian imperial identity, panslavism and all that jazz

_djo_4• 3 years ago

When apartheid South Africa was a pariah state the world held the voting population of South Africa accountable as a collective, rather than just pretending it was only the elite in government making all choices. Although the system was corrupt and hardly a full free and fair election even within the limited racial franchise the country was allowed, the white voting public and corporate and civil society elite had more power than they chose to exercise. They were generally comfortable enough with the status quo to avoid rocking the boat and had developed a national culture that justified the worst of apartheid and attacks on neighbouring countries. They had to be forced out of their comfort zone to address their role in perpetuating the system.

That became obvious when sanctions and disinvestments really bit in the late 1980s and pressure from within forced the government into reforms that ultimately ended apartheid and minority rule.

I see no reason why the same should not apply to Russia. Indeed, I think that's part of the hope by following the same sanctions plus disinvestment route.

footlose_3815• 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure the problem is a circle of oligarchs, cronies, and ex-KGB turning the government into a sadistic mob state, and their citizens poor as hell.

foobarian3• 3 years ago

This seems pretty similar to descriptions of Russia in 1918 as well. What's up with this place? Maybe it's the cultural influence of the Mongol invasion?

pastacacioepepe• 3 years ago

Sounds like racism but ok

martincmartin2• 3 years ago

The barrier to outsiders invading and fixing it is nuclear weapons. If the west's troops invaded Russian, it's quite possible Russia would launch nukes. Even without that, the West doesn't want to put boots on the ground in Russia, fearing it will end up like Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.

The barrier to Russians forming a coup is state repression. The FSB is good at routing out any coup before it can get far. Unless the upper ranks of the military fear for their lives under Putin, their calculus is that they're better off with the status quo than a coup.

anovikov5• 3 years ago

It only depends on political will. Airtight isolation will be enough to solve Russia, let's say. On the level that "whoever has any diplomatic or trade relationship with Russia or does not accept the same policy, can't trade with anyone in the West", this policy will take days to "infect" entire world. Not being able to trade they will quickly descend to starvation, rampant disease and death. Then we can take refugees.

Also, well, if we were serious about it, we could throw in enough resources to defeat them like we did it with Soviet Union. Except not recognise any successor states this time: everyone out, with hands up, and that's it.

iavael8• 3 years ago

So you think some kind of final solution is necessary?

jimbob452• 3 years ago

Any Russians on here to explain why dissenters wouldn’t work on leaving the country rather than token demonstrations like this?

gleenn• 3 years ago

The article says he was investigated only after his daughter drew a picture in class. So it probably wasn't particularly planned. And then he fled to Belarus once he got wind of the charges.

jimbob452• 3 years ago

Is vehemently disowning the art piece not enough to avoid jail or is it to the point where they’re jailing people for any excuse at all?

apples_oranges• 3 years ago

Leaving the country is not easy.. you just need one grandmother that needs care and you're stuck

firebaze• 3 years ago

Also, most european countries don't allow russian¹² refugees anymore, and traveling by plane into western countries is impossible for (non-oligarch-level-wealthy) russians.

¹ germany: https://www.proasyl.de/en/news/germany-federal-office-for-mi... ² finland: https://thebarentsobserver.com/ru/node/189

Trias11• 3 years ago

Any sane person who isn't a brain-washed z-patriot has already left Russia or at least staying quiet.

At this point North Korea is a democracy compared to russia.

FpUser4• 3 years ago

I recommend quitting theatrics. Yes Russia implementing absolutely awful laws. They do not yet send people to labor camps en masse and living standard is still much higher.

They have quite a way to go down to NK levels. I hope that fucker Putin and his cronies gets wiped out before it happens.

Also the West is not really looking forward to accept Russian refugees / dissenters. They do send them back.

fuy• 3 years ago

Well, that was the whole premise of the question though.

Of course there are many millions of Russians who oppose the war and who still stay in Russia. And some of them are not staying quiet.

mamonster• 3 years ago

Need to have something to go to.

The dissidents still stuck in Russia are for the most part people that would not be able to succeed at all in Europe. Big name scientists left during the 90s, people who succeeded economically started leaving post 2008(once Putin/bureaucrats started clamping down on free business) and the last of both groups got out once the conflict started.

I mean at this point in time most European/ex-USSR countries have put measures in place to prevent dissenters escaping there, so it also isn't easy even if you do have skills.

popilewiz• 3 years ago

Leaving Russia is difficult and takes a lot of money and connections. Most people don't have that or have other reasons not to. It's "smart" to stay quiet and not put yourself in danger but people like Moskalyov are compelled to at least say something.

ChuckNorris89• 3 years ago

From your question I can guess you most likely live in a developed country with a great passport and/or have a career where you make great money enabling you to move country whenever you want.

But for everyone else, to leave their country and move somewhere else legally, you need a visa, and a lot of money, which not everyone in Russia has.

Most countries where Russians left en masses to due to lax visa requirements, pushed the rent prices there to 2x-4x till today. Not great for the locals and not great for the Russians also trying to move there. And most western counties aren't in a rush to issue visas to all Russians.

Unless you have relatives abroad to help you out, or a skilled lucrative profession enabling you to save money and get a visa, you're screwed.

And that's besides the whole ordeal of leaving vulnerable family members behind.

FpUser4• 3 years ago

Here is one example, there are many others

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/18/biden-admini...

taleodor• 3 years ago

A lot of people are in lower income brackets and don't have the means nor understanding where and how to leave the country.

Another big factor is that many countries have essentially closed borders for Russian nationals - i.e. US is now deporting those who are fleeing - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/18/biden-admini...

There are also few people who do want to stay in Russia and try to fight Putin there (like Navalny or Yashin).

duxup• 3 years ago

I suspect for many people the process is hard to say the least.

Where would you live? Where can you work? Will you even find a job if you legally can work? Will your rights be protected even there? What happens to family back home? Can you take enough money with?

Many people have left hastily but they seem to be people with means, or directly at risk (conscription), young men who can grit it out for a while somewhere else.

Most people don't have connections in other countries to run to.

golergka• 3 years ago

Many of countries that are easy to get to easily extradite political activists and defectors back to Russia.

flanked-evergl5• 3 years ago

I'm an immigrant that legally migrated into Schengen from outside Schengen. I currently have a temporary residence permit. I don't come from a country basically at war with NATO, I have a job, I earn good money, I contribute to society, I follow the laws, and still this is the most difficult thing I have ever done in my whole life, and it is not particularly close. It is expensive, it is time consuming, it is life consuming, every single step in the process is a gamble that could end up ruining my whole life in addition to taking all savings I ever had.

I feel like every day is a struggle just to keep my head above water. Even after doing everything I need to get permanent residence, I still have to wait 16 months for approval, which is longer than my temporary residence permit, and they won't renew that.

Immigrating to a country is hard. I don't blame the country I'm moving into, I get it, they have laws, but damn do I wish it was just a little bit easier.

Given how hard this is, think about how hard it will be for someone from Russia. If you just had the faintest inkling of how difficult it is, you would understand how absurd your question is.

I wish I could have it as easy as just walking in and demanding things, too bad that will guarantee that I never get to permanently decouple myself from the shithole that I was born in. And to be quite fair, knowing what I know now, about how difficult it is, I am not sure if it is even worth it.

dcow2• 3 years ago

Well this explains the situation exactly. People are oppressed into being hopeless. How Russian that seems.

seer2• 3 years ago

Migrating to Schengen is indeed hard (bordering on imposing) to a lot of Russians, but that’s not the only nice place in the world.

For example India right now is quite accepting of Russian immigrants - the place is full of them. There are a lot of places that are still open, and would welcome experienced workers from Russia, granted it might not be as glamorous as EU, but I bet at this point a lot of Africa would look like an egalitarian paradise.

You are totally right that it is incredibly hard, but as a russian who had migrated to the EU I wouldn’t say it’s insurmountable - granted I did it way before the invasion, but still I never felt threatened - it was all time consuming, bureaucratic and slow, but I just had to follow the process.

Software devs seem to be in demand everywhere so plenty of peaceful and nice places for us lot to settle thankfully.

orthoxerox• 3 years ago

About 30% of Russians are against the war (20% don't know, 50% support the war). That's about 40 million people that would have to leave the country.

Only 30% of Russians have travel passports, and most of them used them to travel to Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other ex-Soviet countries to visit their relatives.

5e92cb50239222b9• 3 years ago

Those numbers are pulled right out of someone's ass. No-one really knows how many citizens are for and against the war (there were some hints that the Kremlin did several unofficial polls and really didn't like their results, but nothing supported by good evidence).

Also, you don't need a travel passport to visit relatives in ECU (which Kazakhstan is a member of), and it's pretty much impossible to visit Ukraine legally regardless of whether you have a passport or not.

anovikov5• 3 years ago

Because they are poor people not speaking any foreign languages (Russian language education system is intentionally terrible), with no marketable skills relevant outside of Russia. They are both victims of the system and it's products, unalienable from the system itself.

mrtksn• 3 years ago

I’m not Russian but have some experience with moving around with a (once)weak passport: You can’t just go wherever you like.

You are not welcome and they won’t let you come if they suspect you might stay. Some conspire to send you to Rwanda, some beat you up on the border, others lock you up in concentration camps.

You are also the boogyman for about %20-%50 of the population of the country you go and about that many politicians promise to get rid of you if they get elected.

One day you are on the bus and feel tired, a seat frees up and you snap it. You look around and see hateful stares directed at you.

For many many years you can’t function like a normal person. You can’t have a normal job, you can’t start a business, you can’t rent, you can’t subscribe to utilities and you need to find people who will help you out with all this all the time.

Some places will be more helpful than others but will make you feel your boundaries all the time and they will get rid of you at your first mistake.

Also, remember how you are active citizen protesting against war in your own country? You can’t protest in your new country, you are expected to be cooperating %100 of the time with whatever the locals do. Moving to another country, means you completely give up your aspirations of influencing the society.

SXX6• 3 years ago

It's really sad what people like you have to overcome. Fortunately this is not the case for majority immigrants from Russia even though it's multinational country. Very few people in west would ever be able to tell if a person in front of them is from Russia, Ukraine or Belarus. In some countries locals can't even tell we're foreigners.

Problems of people who immigrating from Russia are mostly financial.

SXX6• 3 years ago

For once because no one welcome people with Russian passport regardless of fact that you're against the war. It's possible to get humanitarian visa to a few EU few countries, but it's very difficult unless you're already under criminal investigation.

Few countries where it easy to move is ex-USSR countries like Georgia, Armenia, Kazahstan, etc. Unfortunately in all of them except Georgia there is high risk of extradition. And there good chance Georgia can simply close border at any moment or refuse entry at random.

There are few other countries including Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia, but moving there is actually quite expensive. It's really only an option for IT people who work remotely and there good chance your residency permit won't be renewed at any moment. Finding offline job in those countries even harder and with inflated cost of rent such job will barely pay enough to survive.

I personally donated to Armed Forces of Ukraine and posted enough on social media to get myself in prison for next 10 years, but I not gonna to attract attention to myself just to to get a visa.

atemerev3• 3 years ago

Sure (I am Russian, emigrated in 2005, never been in Russia since 2014). Here are some of the actual reasons:

1) Immigration is hard. Particularly when you are not from a well-developed country with a powerful passport. You will live on a borrowed time, where the host country will invent reasons to deport you (to Russia, of course, where you most probably will be jailed in no time). I live in Switzerland for 18 years, and still on a temporary residence permit, as the Swiss government invents more and more creative laws and rules to deny me a permanent residence, not to mention citizenship, which is a pipe dream at this point.

2) Leaving your parents and elder relatives might not be something many people are ready for. In Russia, there is a strong notion that children are supposed to support their parents in the old age.

3) One misadventure with the Russian law (and many people from Russian opposition have a lot of them for their protests), and you can’t go out. You will be stopped at the border. The ability to exit the country is a privilege in Russia; not yet at the level it used to be in the USSR, but a privilege nonetheless.

4) Some heroic people think that they have to stay and fight, instead of quitting. It might be near impossible, but they have a reason.

Etc, etc. Those who could move out are really lucky. I am lucky, too.

sgt2• 3 years ago

What happens if you marry a Swiss chick, will they give you citizenship or did they plug that hole as well?

gdy10• 3 years ago

"(to Russia, of course, where you most probably will be jailed in no time)"

Only if you publicly protest against the war.

"and you can’t go out"

Really? Lots of opposition figures emigrated from Russia since the war started.

codedokode6• 3 years ago

Many countries don't issue visas and residence permits to Russian due to sanctions, for example, it is difficult to get to EU. There are countries you can leave for, but there are no jobs or they are with low pay, Russian education certificates are not usable there. So you can escape, but how are you going to live there if you don't have money?

Of course if you are rich that is not a problem. For example, relatives of high-ranked officials are sometimes seen spending time in Europe, shopping or visiting resorts, financing the economy of NATO countries.

VincentEvans5• 3 years ago

To an observer not closely following the extraordinary cycle of internal repressions taking place in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine - the news coming out of there, such as this one - may appear sensationalized. Surely this level of judicial evil is overstated!

It’s not.

The show trials over alleged enemies of the state reminiscent of Stalin are becoming routine. Regular people receiving sentences of 7 years in colonies for anti-war posts or statements - are common.

At the same time - convicted murderers are freed to volunteer to fight against Ukraine and are given state honors, with laws being written threatening severe punishment for reporting the details of their past.

andersentobias• 3 years ago

Sources?

bazoom42• 3 years ago

Is this question in good faith? Wagner recruiting from prisons have been widely reported.

eitland2• 3 years ago

Do you read Russian?

_visgean2• 3 years ago

Regular people receiving sentences of 7 years in colonies for anti-war posts or statements

well apart from the from the article on which you are commenitng, you can read this https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/russia-studen...

At the same time - convicted murderers are freed to volunteer to fight against Ukraine and are given state honors

e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/world/europe/wagner-fight...

VincentEvans5• 3 years ago

I don’t collect articles, but here’re some results of a google query for “russia sentences for opposing war”:

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-moscow-government-...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ilya-yashin-valdimir-put...

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/dmitry-ivanov-sergei-sm...

Here’s one about Wagner:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1741299/Russia-Wagner-G...

Again, all these are just top results of a google search.

5e92cb50239222b9• 3 years ago

I really wish this got more attention (but I guess Russian citizens receive zero sympathy these days, their political position notwithstanding). Maybe then we would see less of this tiresome bullshit from keyboard warriors from around the globe who blame ordinary citizens for being unwilling to throw themselves unarmed against a neo-Stalinist dictatorship that the West has supported for more than two decades.

The EU only banned sales of riot control gear and weaponry in October 2022! and they're still buying tons and tons of oil, gas, diamonds, and other natural resources that directly finance the war (taxes on natural resources go to the army pretty much right away, unlike taxes on sales and salaries that finance local projects like roads and schools). In fact, Russia made record profits last year.

I do not live in Russia, but I have enough experience living under a strongly authoritarian rule to know what it's like. Another favorite of the West in fact, that did terrible things to the people in January 2022, and no-one batted an eye.

Bayart2• 3 years ago

In fact, Russia made record profits last year.

There was a lag between the jumps in prices and the move towards other sources than Russia. Russia is going to have massive budget issues from this year onwards. Saying that Europe is still a massive buyer of Russia gas and oil is simply false.

jevgeni7• 3 years ago

First and foremost it was the russians who supported their government.

russians were silent during Chechnya, during the Yukos case, after Putin's comments on Kursk widows, after killing of Politkovskaya, Nemtsov, and so on and so on. Look at any russian popular media in early 2000s and you will see a huge amount of really casual racism, with "Brat 2" being the pinnacle. Nobody spoke out against it.

Just because they let it fester for so long that now they can't even protest is still on them.

mannerheim• 3 years ago

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.

goldfeld• 3 years ago

At the same time - convicted murderers are freed to volunteer to fight against Ukraine and are given state honors, with laws being written threatening severe punishment for reporting the details of their past.

I guess it's a return to the recent past centuries then, with how many "blue blood" noble families came into existence by the state giving land, honors and vote to the reckless cruel men who could more the easily kill (murder?) in the many wars, wars not often over morally sound motives themselves. I'm not criticizing your comment, just wondering out loud.

esarbe8• 3 years ago

Russia is slipping into totalitarianism more and more very day. But this did not happen over night; Putin and his cronies have been working towards this goal for more than 15 years now and the attack on Ukraine simply gave them all the excuses they needed to clamp down on the last dissenters.

So painful

lolinder4• 3 years ago

Russia never really got out of totalitarianism. They've had two brief windows where they looked like they might (post-revolution and post-collapse), but those were really just windows of pseudo-anarchy while the next totalitarian regime consolidated power.

esarbe8• 3 years ago

I guess there's some truth to that. What's coming off now was just a pretense.

hippich• 3 years ago

Just to note, same happens in Belarus. This is one of the reason we can't travel there to see our grand parents - risk of being put in to prison and kids taken away is just to high to accept.

cainxinth• 3 years ago

Belarus is a Russian puppet-state under Lukashenko.

varjag9• 3 years ago

The authoritarianism in Belarus is entirely domestic in origin and predates the modern Russian one.

fauxpause_2• 3 years ago

Wagner leader Prigozhin made a statement against this one as part of his internal politics war. So in case people are questioning whether this is just western propaganda, no, it appears to be the same story running around domestically, with many ultra nationalists supporting it.

red-iron-pine2• 3 years ago

source me plz

fauxpause_2• 3 years ago

https://t.me/concordgroup_official/658

Covered by ISW: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens...

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin seized on the recent story of the sentencing of a Tula Oblast father for his 12-year-old daughter’s antiwar drawing to promote the Wagner Group’s reputation and ameliorate his own personal image. Prigozhin’s press service posted a letter on March 28 signed by Prigozhin, Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin, and Wagner-affiliated director of the “Liga” veteran's organization Andrey Troshev addressed to Tula Oblast prosecutor Alexander Gritsaenko stating that the signatories consider Gritsaenko’s issuance of a two-year prison sentence to Aleksey Moskalev unfair.[7] Moskalev was charged with “discrediting the armed forces” after his 12-year-old daughter Masha drew an antiwar picture with a Ukrainian flag in her school art class in April 2022.[8] Masha was taken into state custody and now lives in a juvenile shelter, and Moskalev fled house arrest the night before his sentencing and was sentenced to two years in prison in absentia.[9] Prigozhin’s letter suggests that Tula Oblast check the legality of Gritsaenko’s sentencing and recommends that Wagner-affiliated lawyers participate in the case on Moskalev’s side, noting that it is tragic that both Masha and children of dead Wagner fighters end up in orphanages.[10] Prigozhin’s response to Moskalev’s sentencing is particularly ironic considering that Prigozhin was initially one of the biggest and loudest supporters of the law on punishing those who ”discredit” Russian forces.[11] It is therefore likely that Prigozhin seized on the discourse surrounding Moskalev to further his own reputation and advocate for the Wagner Group, especially by choosing to highlight the plight of orphans of Wagner fighters who die in Ukraine.[12] Prigozhin may seek to maintain his own domestic relevance by continuing to closely involve himself in such developing stories, especially by affiliating his newest campaign for relevance with Utkin and Troshev—two well-established and notorious Wagner-affiliated personalities. The letter attempts to portray Wagner's leadership as a united front against elements of the Russian bureaucracy.[13]

ourmandave• 3 years ago

They've already yoinked hundreds of Ukraine children from families, so why not?

Embrace the fuckery and continue the war crimes on your own citizens.

iso16312• 3 years ago

It seems that support for Ukraine is one aspect that crosses demographics here in the UK, Left and Right, Young and Old, Leave and Remain, all fully oppose Russia and broadly support the efforts the UK and the west in general have done.

It seems to be that a significant number of people in America seem to support the Russian narrative.

varjag9• 3 years ago

Selling Russia as the city on a hill to much of American public both on the right and on the left was tremendously successful info op.

dd362• 3 years ago

That’s what their media is telling them.

cafard• 3 years ago

You have the nostalgists on the left who remember Mother Russia as they imagined it. You have some on the right who favor Russia for some mix of liking the traditional values thing that Putin puts out, resenting implications that Trump was in his pocket, disliking the Ukraine for its connection with the first impeachment, and I don't know what all.

petertodd3• 3 years ago

Ever seen the belligerents list in the first Gulf War? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

It was basically the entire world against Iraq. Even countries like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone contributed to the coalition forces against Iraq, because invading your neighbors to steal resources is frowned upon by essentially everyone.

The only reason this hasn't happened again with Russia is because Russia has nukes to threaten the world with, and cheap oil and gas to sell. And even then, mutually assured destruction greatly diminishes that nuclear threat.

5e92cb50239222b9• 3 years ago

I wonder where were those moralists when Putin's oligarchs were pouring billions of GBP stolen from Russian citizens into London property.

kornhole• 3 years ago

We should all keep in mind the old saying, "The first casualty of war is the truth." I am not saying that you are incorrect but that we should digest some stories with a bit of skepticism. Here is a counter report on that claim to consider. https://thegrayzone.com/2023/03/31/iccs-putin-arrest-state-d...

rendall• 3 years ago

I read that article with an open mind, but ultimately do not trust it. Among other tells, the term "break-away republic" betrays his sympathies. I might summarize it as "Pro-Russian journalist visits Ukrainian children's camps and sees nothing wrong."

brnt3• 3 years ago

Half a million actually, and that was just the kids, and last august: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/01/forcible-transfer-ukrain...

potatototoo99• 3 years ago

Is a family in the US that publicly supports Al Qaeda or ISIS not being threatened with the same?

khochesh_kushat• 3 years ago

No, and even if they were, that wouldn't make taking people's children away from them as punishment for thought crimes a reasonable policy.

simion3142• 3 years ago

Fuck dude, Ukraine is not a terrorist organization, at least compared with Ruzzia where you had state people going around the world and assassinating civilians with various possions. Too bad West is too coward to name Putin, his pary and Ruzzia a terrorist state and apply the laws for Ruzzia as they are doing for other terrorist organizations.

VincentEvans5• 3 years ago

I doubt this argument is made in good faith. Do you think it’s reasonable to equate Ukraine with ISIS or Al Qaeda and a child drawing a painting depicting a mother and a child with the text “stop war” as supporting ISIS or Al Qaeda?

kybernetyk• 3 years ago

Same happens with Polish kids in Norway.

tromp• 3 years ago

citation needed

sgt2• 3 years ago

I've heard of that and I tried to google it but it's nearly impossible to find anything on it on Google anymore. Something about Child Protection in Norway taking away children if the parent was fatigued etc.

jackmott422• 3 years ago

The same is happening in Texas, where your kid can be taken away without trial if someone reports that they may be trans.

ta988• 3 years ago

Not true yet but it is proposed.

jackmott422• 3 years ago

It is a directive from the Governor that has already caused parents to be under investigation and some have already had to flee the state.

ck2• 3 years ago

Go on, tell me this doesn't have a nuclear weapon used to "salt" Ukraine crops when he's on his final deathbed.

There are no checks and balances, everyone is just going to do what they are told and that will be the end of that.

The surge in the price of all wheat products in the US is in part due to Ukraine crops being unavailable, they are important to the entire world.

robswc• 3 years ago

Nothing new. Family from Eastern Europe had to deal with this bs with communism. It was always the fear of neighbors “ratting you out” made everyone paranoid. You had to be on board or risked being “taken away.”

jacquesm5• 3 years ago

Indeed. The fear was sometimes voiced as being afraid of people 'taking names' with future consequences.

lajosbacs• 3 years ago

And it takes generations to forget. I spent only my infancy under communism, but through my parents this is ingrained in me. I am always very careful to voice my opinion and I care too much about what unknown ppl would think about me. Criminal regime

arvigeus• 3 years ago

Not just “rattling out”, often you had a quota as well.

scottLobster6• 3 years ago

Russians have never had any real individual rights. Throughout their history the common people have just been resources enslaved to brutal overlords. The Soviets were perhaps somewhat softer overlords on average, but the principle remains.

The state will dispose of disobedient people the same way it would dispose of rotten potatoes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ZqBLcIvw0

codedokode6• 3 years ago

That's how majority of the world lives though.

scottLobster6• 3 years ago

Yeah, and I wouldn't want to live in the majority of the world. Judging by immigration patterns, most people who live in the majority of the world don't want to either. It's one reason Russia's having issues with the T-14 tank, not only are a lot of its parts imported from the West, but anyone in Russia smart enough to help build a tank has almost certainly left for the West where they can have a better standard of living.

Democracies have decisively defeated dictatorships and oligarchies at every turn for the last century, the fact that dictatorships remain as a lesser category of nation is proof only that human potential has yet to be fully realized.

medo-bear23• 3 years ago

perhaps. but russians were always dicks to themselves first. however, ask the american natives and the blacks what they think about individual rights in the us

but then again, for sake of fairness, lest we forget that russia, as part of ussr, was a pioneer in workers, women and ethnic rights. so much so that during the 1920s if you were a trade unionist, a feminist or fighting for national liberation of your people you most certainly ran the risk of being labeled a russian agent.

scottLobster6• 3 years ago

A key difference being that American society has evolved over the last 200 years to largely outgrow the cultural elements that produced those abuses. We fought a very bloody civil war to get rid of slavery, and black people/women have had the right to vote for some time. We're also not massacring Native American villages anymore. Not saying the problems are 100% solved, but no one can argue it's night and day compared to 100 years ago.

Putin by contrast is a return to a 19th century Tsardom in everything but name.

mfer2• 3 years ago

Russians have never had any real individual rights.

To take a step back and think about things (not that I'm suggesting what I think)... in most places for most of history it's been about the group. The collective. Being heavily individualized is a modern and western thing.

So, why is one way right and another way wrong?

Note, I do not agree with what's going on with Russia. I'm simply bringing up the higher level question that's often assumed but rarely looked at.

alkonaut2• 3 years ago

So, why is one way right and another way wrong?

There are conventions. That countries agree to uphold. In this case not upholding them is the "wrong" way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...

meijer• 3 years ago

I don't think respect for basic humans rights and heavy individualization are necessarily related. They should be discussed separately.

NineStarPoint• 3 years ago

Russia isn’t a country that’s about the group either though, it’s just a strong oligarchy. And not even an oligarchy that has roots in group based thinking like China, it’s very much an oligarchy born out of western individualism instead.

More generally, I’d say that group based thinking should not be enforced by the government. A society based around “the group is most important” can enforce itself just fine based on societal norms and their consequences (who people are willing to interact with and hire for work). What a government stepping in and saying what sort of talk is acceptable does is freeze the society to what the government enforces. Instead people should be able to try and change society norms if they believe there’s a better way, rather than government forcing it to stagnate.

scottLobster6• 3 years ago

One way produces far more wealth for more people than the other. Wealth isn't just luxuries, it's technology. It's health. It's more time to do more things more efficiently. It's evolving and generally improving the human condition, as opposed to stagnation. Obviously not everyone agrees with the direction of evolution or the various philosophies involved, but the system provides flexibility such that we aren't constantly genociding each other just to get our way, which used to be the norm. Of course at the end of the day none of us know the meaning of existence, but I think most can agree taht "reducing fruitless suffering" is a better place to start than most.

Obviously there's a balance to be struck. 100% individualism is just anarchy. But history has proven that allowing people an above-historical-average level of individual freedom leads to a more productive and secure society.

That said it's debatable whether strong-man dictatorships are "collectivist" at all. They're extremely individualist, but only for a select group of elite individuals. Otherwise they'd try and make decisions to benefit the group, and as Putin has shown in Ukraine, they often don't. Never mind the strategic decision to invade which might have had some initial merit, you would expect a truly collectivist nation to prioritize competence in its military. As it stands a full NATO conventional intervention could end the war in a month, the only thing keeping Russia intact is brutal suppression of internal dissent and a nuclear arsenal that, if it's been maintained as badly as its regular military, might very well explode in its silos on launch.

That doesn't sound like a very effective collective to me. Maybe it would have been effective 300 years ago because that level of organization is all most nations had, but that's the point. It's an obsolete model.

sifar• 3 years ago

This group-individual dichotomy has been the oldest source of conflict. As social construct, both the individual and the group cannot exists without each other. One can only be an individual when one can differentiate oneself from or within a group - otherwise there is no basis for comparison.

There is the tyranny of the group and the tyranny of the individual - we need to reject both.

On which way is right - I would say one should be able to choose the group and retreat from it if so desired.

WeylandYutani2• 3 years ago

You'd have a point if the Russian elites were actually on the front lines and not partying in Dubai and India.

Putin's regime is not communism.

bpodgursky• 3 years ago

The Soviets were perhaps somewhat softer overlords on average

Most Russians in the Tzarist Russian empire could go years or decades without being actively oppressed — people out in rural villages could at least survive through benign neglect.

There was no benign neglect in the soviet union. You were a gear in the system and if you failed to fill that part, you were liquidated or sent to a prison camp.

331c8c717• 3 years ago

There was no benign neglect in the soviet union. You were a gear in the system and if you failed to fill that part, you were liquidated or sent to a prison camp.

Like you would be sent to a prison camp in the 80s? Just stop...

Late soviet union was pure benign neglect.

FpUser4• 3 years ago

"if you failed to fill that part, you were liquidated or sent to a prison camp."

I grew up in USSR. If you take late 70s and 80s (do not know how it was before) you would have to very actively open your mouth and be a dissident if you wanted to end up in prison camp even though it did not guarantee it. I left in 91 so have no idea how it later progressed from nearly absolute freedom at that time to what Russia has now with this maniac in power.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Russians have never had any real individual rights

Russians had a real thing going in the 19th century. Turgenev [0], for example, wrote contemporaneously around when the serfs were freed [1]. Their history went in the direction of a series strongmen, similar to China today, but there was a balancing point when it could have been different.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sportsman%27s_Sketches

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(novel)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_reform_of_1861

medo-bear23• 3 years ago

this is absolutely terrible. this is a sure way for russia to create a modern version of the stolen generation [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

jnsaff217• 3 years ago

Sure is terrible, just weird that russians themselves just take it and don't stand up.

medo-bear23• 3 years ago

um they did, in 1917, like no one else, ever. too bad the whole thing took a wrong turn a decade later

mikeyouse• 3 years ago

There have been many internal reform attempts in Russia, almost universally the leaders of each have been assassinated or imprisoned. It’s a very dangerous place to protest, especially now that they’ve invaded Ukraine and legalized mobilization.

codedokode6• 3 years ago

Good luck standing up against million of well armed, well paid and well trained national guards.

foverzar4• 3 years ago

Honestly, not too much people take it here as seriously as you guys somewhere over there.

Most just get skeptical of such stories the older they get, and this is unfortunately a consequence of personal empirical evidence. You expect the truth but instead get a story. As you grow older the story starts to feel rough, doesn't add up to experience and at some point turns into a complete Orwellian bullshit.

Stories get treated as tabloid bs used as propaganda, and quite often this is hardly too far from the truth.

331c8c717• 3 years ago

I don't think he's an immediate threat to society or his daughter and hence don't support the imprisonment.

The portrait painted by the Economist is, however, incomplete. I guess because the details are not pretty. Mr. Moskalyov was convicted three times before this trial (but haven't served any jail time):

- in 1984 for theft

- in 2004 for (illegal) imprisonment without kidnapping

- in 2008 for violating production/transport safety regulations

Apparently he's also not paying utilities/taxes and have no legal sources of income -- he's growing and selling exotic animals but that's off the books.

Feel sorry for the kid the most...

SXX6• 3 years ago

Do you really think it's important what he did 20 years ago?

Half of Russia population don't pay taxes and occasionally have no money to cover their utility bills. Most people outside of Moscow only earn $300-500 / month.

Also do you reallt think it's a good idea to pay taxes in Russia at this moment? All these taxes gonna be used to kill children in Ukraine.

331c8c717• 3 years ago

Do you really think it's important what he did 20 years ago

To the extent it might have influenced the ruling...

Half of Russia population don't pay taxes and occasionally have no money to cover their utility bills. Most people outside of Moscow only earn $300-500 / month.

50% would be an overstatement. It's normally deducted directly by the employer regardless of the salary so you don't see that money to start with (and typically negotiate/agree on your net salary).

People who don't pay utilities eventually get disconnected from electricity/gas etc.

lolinder4• 3 years ago

First, what's your source for this claim? Russia's propaganda arm is massive and working 24/7, so you can't go spouting off claims like this without telling us where you're getting your information. We need to be able to vet your source.

Second, given that we're talking about Russia's justice system, I wouldn't really care if this were true! Being convicted of a crime in Russia isn't proof you did it—it's just proof you're not in the Kremlin's good graces.

331c8c717• 3 years ago

https://memopzk.org/figurant/moskalyov-aleksej-vladimirovich...

https://m.newstula.ru/fn_1307328.html

The first one is from a widely known human rights advocacy group Memorial (which has tensions with the state). The second is a regional newspaper of sorts (hence state-controlled give or take).

VincentEvans5• 3 years ago

You seem to have a lot of facts handy - do you also happen to have an english translation of the letter his daughter sent to him that you can post here? Just to balance out 20 years old mud.

331c8c717• 3 years ago

That's quite an accurate tranlation: https://metro.co.uk/2023/03/30/russian-girls-letter-sent-to-...

SXX6• 3 years ago

As Russian who left the country on February 25th 2022 I can strongly recommend following substack for those who curios about economical and political situation inside the country:

https://ironcurtain.substack.com/

Author is Sergey Aleksashenko who is economist and former government official. He now live in US and actively support Ukraine, but he have really neutral and realistic view on events.

IngvarLynn• 3 years ago

The very first article I clicked is "analysis" of Levada polls. This is pure garbage. In the land where all sorts of police get involved over child's drawing the phone poll has value just above zero.

I am yet to see any former kremlin official which public activity could not be classified as whitewashing.

kleiba• 3 years ago

Pro-russion forces will claim this report is mere propaganda - how to proof it's not?

lolinder4• 3 years ago

The burden of proof is on the country that started an unprovoked, brutal war of aggression that has thrown away the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in just over a year and still insists on not referring to it as a war. If you don't want people to believe that your country is a brutal oppressive authoritarian regime, you start by not acting like one, not by crying foul when people tell stories about your brutal oppressive authoritarian habits.

d232• 3 years ago

They'd love nothing more than for you to believe there is no proof or evidence for anything -- no truth for you to discern. Just struggles in the will to power.

dukeofdoom• 3 years ago

There are international organizations that try to protect children's rights. For example, Robert Kennedy, who might a presidential run as a democrat in the next election is involved in the Children's Health Defence

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/

d232• 3 years ago

How depressing it must be to have lived through the collapse of the soviet union, realize the magnitude of lies, see the hope of a new Russia, and then have to go through this.

5e92cb50239222b9• 3 years ago

realize the magnitude of lies

Most of those born in USSR did not go through that realization. I am from KZ and it's the same here, if a bit more toned down (at least you don't see open praise for Stalin, probably because we were one of the main destinations for many deportations initiated by him: I grew up among many ethnic Germans and Chechens and such). It's one of the main reasons for what's been happening since the beginning of 2022, IMHO.

shashurup• 3 years ago

To be honest, after the collapse I was to busy making ends meet. Later, surprisingly, the sad realization was the fact that the western propaganda was in no way better than the soviet - the soviet one was too straightforward and it was easy to spot what was omitted, what was exaggerated etc.

I considered myself old and cynical but the level of hypocrisy recently is astonishingly, absolutely mind blowing.

gdy10• 3 years ago

"How depressing it must be to have lived through the collapse of the soviet union"

Unless you were among millions who simply died in the 'democratic' 90s [0].

"Mortality increased substantially after the economic crisis in 1998, with life expectancy falling to 58.9 years among men and 71.8 years among women by 2001. Most of these fluctuations were due to changes in mortality from vascular disease and violent deaths (mainly suicides, homicides, unintentional poisoning, and traffic incidents) among young and middle aged adults. Trends were similar in all parts of Russia. An extra 2.5-3 million Russian adults died in middle age in the period 1992-2001 than would have been expected based on 1991 mortality."

And what was depressing was seeing the magnitude of Western lies and the disillusionment that followed.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC259165/

foverzar4• 3 years ago

Ow wow, I expected this one would become like "FSB arrests children for blowing up buildings in Minecraft" as soon as the first details had started to surface, but never would have guessed it would hit HN.

PsyOps is strong, I see a few other people here bringing them up and getting mass downvoted.

orwin• 3 years ago

This one is on Russia telegram groups too, I don't think it's false (the details aren't the same, but the story is basically 'parent indoctrinated children should be given back to Russia' if Google translate is right)

mahoro• 3 years ago

They took my daughter to the orphanage luckily for two days because of this reason (I'm a single parent).

Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

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