Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Russian anti war movement

Again, this is anti-war Belarusians. Hope nobody minds but think it fits better here than on the Belarus thread.
Since it's so difficult to protest there now, union of mothers left small cuddly toys out in public with anti-war messages.
Even these small acts come with great risk. It's a poignant record of the cruelty of Putin and Lukashenka, and the bravery of those who resist.

 
Latest roundup:

Always interesting to hear stuff about morale in the Russian army:
In the southern theater of hostilities, instead of rotation, Russian soldiers are being sent to the Henichesk district of Kherson region. They are placed at the bases of the Arabat Spit sandbar, where they are allowed to rest for several weeks, and are sent into battle again. The command fears they will flee if they are allowed to visit Crimea, local residents say. Russian human rights lawyer Alexei Tabalov claims that in the Kherson region there are some "pits" for refusers, similar to the concentration camp in Bryanka. "This is happening throughout the occupied territory, where Russian troops are located. And from the appeals that come to us, from the frequency of appeals to our organizations, in particular partner organizations, one gets the impression that everyone is ready to run away from the battlefield. And, probably, recognizing this fact, this is a big problem for the Ministry of Defense. And now they are already moving from intimidation at the beginning of the "special operation" to such serious actions as kidnapping, taking them to some pits, premises and keeping their own servicemen as prisoners of war". He has a number of successful cases to help the military personnel with termination of their contracts.

According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, authorities of the peninsula initiated at least 148 cases on sabotage of Z-cars, 21 of which are in Sevastopol. In one of the cases, a resident of Sevastopol was fined 30,000 rubles for damaging the rear windshield of a Russian Guard's vehicle with the Z-signature. But these are only the facts on which the statements were made. They are sure that there are many who did not complain.
 
Moscow ABC raising money for a lawyer for a guy who (I would say allegedly but I'm not sure that disclaimer applies here) molotoved a FSB office in Moscow:
 
I don't know if this interview with the veteran self-described Marxist diissident Boris Kargalitsky belongs in this thread exactly, but can't see where else to put it. It's interesting. This, for instance, is typical Russia, and tells us everything:

'There is no sign that the working class supports the war. But the Russian working class is weak, defeated by enormous deindustrialization. The Russian bureaucracy is huge; they side with the government no matter what it does. If tomorrow we have a different government, these people will immediately side with the new government. All these people were communists. Then they became liberals, then they became good patriots.

If necessary, they will become communists again or whatever. Liberals or fascists, it doesn’t matter. But what really makes quite a few people scared is the trend, especially outside of Moscow, which can be described as a sort of fascist political practice.'

Behind Russia’s Ukraine Disaster
 
Last edited:
(Maybe Russia just writes large the societies that exist more or less eveywhere now. Most people's 'beliefs' are fluid, and it only takes a severe crisis to expose it.)
 
Kargalitsky describes below Perestroika and Glasnost's legacy. even if inadvertently. It unintentionally brought out the very worst in Russian society. The quote below leaves aside the plunder of the economy, and the social and economic breakdwn. P& G had to come, but the results were inevitably different from the intention (a bit like October 1917). 'The West' obviously didn't help in encouraging the very tendencies that, first of all, brought about mafia capitalism and the oligarchs, and then in treating the most western-friendly Russian government in history as a potential/inevitable enemy and begining to expand NATO eastwards when Russia was so much on its knees that military aggression was unimaginable. It was almost as if western support for the (mostly) ex-CPSU leaders who created post-Soviet Russia had in mind the inevitable reaction within Russia, and the opportunities to expand the vast NATO bureaucracy, and all the careers that depend upon it, that would follow. As well as the new openings for the arms industry, and the fortunes to be made and maintained.

The working class and its organisations in Russia and Ukraine, as well as everywhere else, are, as usual, being totally had.


Kargalitsky: 'Some people say, oh, it was like that in the Soviet Union. It was not like that in the Soviet Union because in the Soviet Union at least there was some kind of ideology, some kind of social and political practice.

I don’t know. I didn’t live under Stalin. The Soviet Union, which I remember, was cynical in a sane way. That is, they followed some rituals but were cynical about them; they were religious rituals that are just part of life. Now they want people to be enthusiastic. If you are not enthusiastic, you’re going to be severely punished.

A kind of dictatorship over emotions is being imposed. I know quite a few people who live in Moscow because it doesn’t work this way there. But in Moscow, in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), in Irkutsk, in Krasnoyarsk, in Yakutia the consolidation against protest is intense. You feel it on the street.

But in small towns and medium-sized cities, it’s very different. And there are people who are sort of against the war. They’re very much isolated and they’re afraid. They’re really afraid because they’re living under permanent pressure that something is going to happen to them.'
 
Last edited:
On 31st July, during celebrations of Navy Day in St Petersburg, Yelena Osipova was out again with her words and art against the war in Ukraine. (Alt text below.)

Yelena Osipova - NO WAR.jpg

Description - Older lady (Y. Osipova), wearing navy coloured jacket over stripy light and dark blue top, and smart dark skirt, grey hair tied back, stands in front of fence next to a placard featuring picture of sailors in front of marine vessels. Below reads in Russian "We died for peace," "NO WAR in Ukraine." Beside the writing on the placard are 3 real peach-coloured roses.
 
Another appeal to donate to defence funds via ABC Moscow, who I imagine must have really quite a lot on their plates at the moment:
 

Seems like good news and a victory for the anti war movement even though it won't be framed that way
 
This BBC article is about how a group of young women traced the identity of the copper who tortured them after they were arrested following a Moscow anti-war rally back in March.

It's not an easy read in parts, the way he treated the women was, probably unsurprisingly awful. At least one of the women is only 19.

The torturer police officer's name is Ivan Ryabov. His enabler, the police station's acting head, is Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Georgievich Fedorinov. Although he wasn't present during the torture, all communication took place through him.

The BBC put the allegations - that police officer Ivan Ryabov initiated and participated in the abuse of detainees, and that this abuse in some cases amounted to torture - to both Ryabov and Fedorinov, and to Russia's Investigative Committee. There was no response.

How the ‘man in black’ was exposed by the Russian women he terrorised
 
Fundraiser for Autonomous Action/Avtonom:
Avotonom fundraiser is being cut short, last day to donate is tomorrow:
Link to donate is:
 
Back
Top Bottom