Four years after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia is facing a spring of discontent.
A rolling digital blackout in Russian cities has struck a nerve with ordinary citizens and is fueling a public pushback against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has suffered economically during the war while its security services keep the opposition under control. And conflict in the Middle East has given Russia’s war effort an unexpected boost through high oil prices.
However, Russia’s state apparatus of repression now appears to have shifted into high gear. In recent weeks, law-enforcement officials have begun a new round of high-profile political arrests and raids. And in parallel, the Russian government is resurrecting the ghosts of the Soviet past.
The most recent example: On Tuesday, officials from Russia’s Investigative Committee raided the offices of one of Russia’s biggest publishers and detained employees, following a year-old criminal investigation into what authorities said was a case of “LGBTQ propaganda.”
The publisher, Exmo, owns Popcorn Books, an imprint that publishes young-adult fiction.
The logo of Exmo, Russia’s largest publisher, is on top of the publishing house’s central office building in Moscow on April 21. – Igor Ivanko/AFP/Getty Images
One of its titles seems to have drawn particular scrutiny: “Summer in a Pioneer Tie,” a 2021 bestseller about a romance between two young men at a Soviet summer camp.
Authorities arrested several people linked to the publishing house last year; The Popcorn Books imprint was discontinued in January.
Putin’s Russia has long opposed Western ideas it considers dangerous, with the Kremlin leader positioning himself as a defender of traditional values.
In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that Russian authorities declared the “international LGBTQ movement” an extremist organization, potentially imposing severe criminal penalties for LGBTQ activism — or, apparently, in Eksmo’s case, the act of publishing.
Russian state news agency TASS reported that Exmo’s top managers had been released on bail after questioning. But the publishing industry is not the only place where space for free speech is shrinking in Russia.
Earlier this month, police raided the offices of Novaya Gazeta, the independent newspaper whose co-founder won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Russia’s state news agency Riya-Novosti, citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said journalist Oleg Roldugin was detained for questioning in a criminal case for alleged illegal misuse of personal data. Roldugin pleaded not guilty before the hearing.
The chilling effect of the case is obvious.
Novaya Gazeta was forced to close its print edition after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine but continued to publish online; The attack further marginalizes what remains of Russia’s free press.
Independent news sharing in Russia is already difficult. The government has banned popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and is pushing to implement state-controlled messaging apps called MAX as the population’s default portal for digital services. And the Novaya Gazeta raid came on the day Russia’s Supreme Court designated the human rights organization Memorial as “extremist.”
In a statement, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the designation “effectively criminalizes important human rights work” in Russia.
While the press is under attack, the authorities are also reviving old symbols of political repression. A few days ago, Russia’s FSB Academy, where Putin trained to be a KGB agent, was named in honor of Felix Dzorginsky, the feared founder of the Soviet secret police.
The toppling of Dzherzinsky’s statue outside the KGB headquarters in 1991 was one of the acts that symbolized the end of the Soviet Union. But Russia’s authorities want to embrace the country’s dark, authoritarian past.
On August 22, 1991, a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky was brought down after the failed coup attempt in Moscow, Soviet Union. – Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images
On Thursday, Reuters reported, the embassies of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia issued a protest to the Russian Foreign Ministry, following the demolition of a memorial complex in the Siberian city of Tomsk dedicated to victims of the Soviet secret police. And earlier this month, Russia sparked outrage by installing an exhibition that some commentators said desecrated the Katyn Memorial, the site of the mass execution of Polish warlords by the Soviets in 1940.
But if the Russian government is reviving the ghosts of the Soviet past — and making the lives of ordinary Russians very uncomfortable — Putin himself is showing public indifference.
On Thursday, Putin broke his silence on the rolling digital blackout, which hit the country’s capital in early March.
“I can’t help but point out what people are facing in big cities – it’s rare, but unfortunately, it happens,” he said. “I’m referring to some internet problems and outages in major metropolitan areas.”
A man checks his mobile phone in central Moscow, Russia on March 17. – Ramil Sitdikov/Reuters
Putin said the unpopular internet shutdowns – which have affected e-commerce and made many apps and electronic services inaccessible – are “related to operational work to prevent terrorist attacks.” But he also suggested that the public’s need for information was limited.
“Wide public information in advance can be detrimental to operational development, because criminals hear and see everything,” he said, “and, if the information reaches them, they will adjust their criminal behavior and their criminal plans.”
In other words, wartime life means facing some discomfort. And Russia’s security services show signs of slowing down, widening and deepening the crackdown on civilian life.
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