Telegram Chronicles — Day 12

(Originally posted on Facebook on March 7, 2022)

In Russia, you can’t say “war” anymore. It’s a criminal offense. (Hence the picture I posted below — graffiti in St. Petersburg. Translation — “Say it aloud: War.” I found it on the Telegram channel of Russian anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova.)

On March 4th, Russian government had approved a new law prohibiting “discrediting the use of Russian military forces aimed at protecting the interests of Russia and its people and supporting world peace and security.” (Yes, I know, it’s a mouthful.) What’s considered “discrediting”? Everything, it seems. A poster with the words “No to war” is discrediting. A sermon in support of peace? Discrediting. Some antiwar themes in a private conversation among friends? Yep, you guessed it. Also, if someone has “discredited” the military repeatedly, it becomes a criminal offense. (All of this I learned from an interview with the civil rights lawyer Pavel Chikov, whose Telegram channel is also worth following.)

What else have I learned from Telegram today? The war continues: there were multiple apartment blocks on fire in the town of Nikolaev. Residents of Irpin have been without heat, water, or electricity for 3 days now. Per Emmanuel Macron’s request, Russia has agreed to a ceasefire during evacuation efforts. I don’t know if this ceasefire actually happened anywhere. Red Cross has reported that evacuation paths from Mariupol were heavily mined. There was a third round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations today, but it led to no significant developments.

What else? Oil and gas prices are skyrocketing. Western companies continue to leave Russia or limit their activity there. (Sephora is out. So are Levi Strauss, IBM, Apple, Adidas, and Procter and Gamble. Not Uniqlo, though. They’re staying.) People are leaving as well. It is estimated that around 150 journalists have left Russia. Poet Vera Polozkova has left, saying that there’s no more politics or journalism left in Russia, not a single institution supporting people’s right. Only the insane censorship, economic crisis, and propaganda.

New Gazette reported the case of a Russian sixth grader who, after a class discussion, yelled out “Glory to Ukraine.” Later that day, police came to his home, and when the kid refused to open the door, they shut off the electricity in the apartment. They left after half an hour, but later the kid’s mother was summoned, and of course, the kid himself had to leave the school.

A more disturbing story that dominated Telegram channels today concerns a young woman who was detained in Moscow on Sunday in connection with the anti-war protests. At the police station, the woman was cursed at, beaten, and threatened with torture. The audio recording of her interrogation has been released (with her approval) and published on multiple platforms. It’s horrific. There’s a transcript, but I don’t think I have it in me to translate it. At one point a policeman says, “I think she’s actually enjoying it when we hit her.” Later: “We can do anything. Putin told us to kill your kind. He’s on our side. You — your kind — are the enemy of Russia, the enemy of the people. I’m gonna kill you right now and that’s it, and we’ll even get a bonus for that.”

So there. Tomorrow is March 8th, International Women’s Day, which has always been a huge deal in Russia and might even be a state holiday at this point. We’ll see what it brings.
#telegramWarChronicles