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The ECHR orders Russia to suspend the dissolution of Memorial

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

• The dissolution of Memorial: Meduza’s editorial on this week’s court rulings, the Moscow City Court orders an end to Memorial’s human rights center, and the ECHR demands a pause
• The year in review: The Naked Pravda looks back at nine articles and five books that shaped Russia knowledge in 2021
• Law and order: Chechen dissidents kidnapped, Yuri Khovansky is released, Ivan Zhdanov’s father is back in jail, Google loses again against Tsargrad TV, and an antitrust case against Russia’s metallurgical industry
• Politics and society: Prosvirnin’s supporters raise a bundle of money for his funeral, Yabloko infighting reaches new heights, and the prison service welcomes some dubious new advisers
• International: Lukashenko’s next Constitution, another Biden-Putin/Putin-Biden call is coming, Netflix makes 20 new friends, Putin and Lukashenko hit the ice, new health-monitoring requirements take effect for many foreigners, and Rosatom gets permission to go shopping in Germany

The war on Memorial

Fools have no future in Russia. Read Meduza’s response to the court-ordered dissolution of the Memorial Human Rights Center and the Memorial International Historical Educational Charitable and Human Rights Society.

⚖️ Moscow City Court dissolves Memorial Human Rights Center (this comes a day after Russia’s Supreme Court dissolved Memorial’s historical research society)

⚖️ ECHR tells Russian to suspend dissolution of Memorial pending review of claim over ‘foreign agent’ laws (the European court says it needs time to consider a lawsuit filed in 2013 by 11 Russian NGOs)

The year in review

🎧 The Naked Pravda: The best English-language journalism and scholarly work on Russia in 2021 (85 min)

On this week’s show, The Naked Pravda looks back at some of the journalism and scholarly work in 2021 that made significant contributions to our knowledge about Russia. These nine articles feature incredible fieldwork, insights into how power works in Russia, and compelling stories that you might have missed over the year. Meduza spoke to the authors of three of these articles — Julia Ioffe, Pjotr Sauer, and Maria Danilova — and we asked historian Sean Guillory of The SRB Podcast for his five favorite scholarly books on Russia and the Soviet Union released in 2021.

Law and order

🚨 The relatives of Chechen dissidents are being kidnapped — both in Chechnya and in other parts of Russia (10-min read)

In the final weeks of 2021, at least six Chechen oppositionists reported that their relatives had gone missing. All of these opposition figures live outside of Chechnya and have condemned regional head Ramzan Kadyrov and his cronies for human rights abuses. Several of them have faced threats in the past or even survived assassination attempts. Though their family members living in Chechnya have come under pressure before, they are now being abducted en masse — and not only in Chechnya, but also in other parts of Russia. Though some have been released, many remain missing at the time of this writing. For Meduza, journalist Vladimir Sevrinovsky spoke with three Chechen dissidents whose relatives were targeted in the latest wave of repression.

⚖️ Pending trial, St. Petersburg court releases video blogger charged with felony offense for performing song (Investigators made the request without any explanation. He’s now home again for the first time since June, albeit under several restrictions.)

👮 Police reportedly jail Navalny ally’s father again, 10 days after his release from remand prison (Ivan Zhdanov shared the news on his Instagram account, saying that his father was charged with violating the terms of his parole. No other details were known at the time of this writing.)

💰 Moscow Arbitration Court rules against Google, refusing to suspend still-accruing damages awarded to conservative television channel (The American company started blocking Tsargrad TV in July 2020 after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the network’s owner, Konstantin Malofeyev, for funding separatist activities in eastern Ukraine. Russian courts say Google must pay an exponentially rising amount of money to Tsargrad TV until it unblocks the network on YouTube. The total fine will exceed all global wealth in roughly 18 months.)

💰 Federal Antimonopoly Service accuses metallurgical companies of price fixing, vows tens of millions of dollars in fines (Regulators named Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, the NLMK Group, and Severstal. In May 2021, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov accused the industry of profiteering off government contracts and proposed higher taxes. In fact, Belousov has advocated higher taxes on the metallurgical industry for years.)

Politics and society

💰 Supporters of nationalist writer and activist Egor Prosvirnin raise 7.7 million rubles — almost $104,000 — for his funeral (He will be buried at Moscow’s Troyekurovo Cemetery on January 4, 2022. Prosvirnin fell to his death on December 27 after an apparent argument with his wife. He was 35 years old. Prosvirnin founded the controversial Sputnik & Pogrom website, denounced by critics as a fascist media outlet and banned in Russia in 2017 for promoting extremism.)

🗳️ Ousted Yabloko members launch rival movement, also called Yabloko (The announcement comes a day after the liberal political party’s federal bureau expelled 98 members in Moscow for supporting Alexey Navalny’s Smart Vote initiative and denouncing founder Grigory Yavlinsky for his public criticism of the imprisoned opposition figure. Yabloko kicked out several sitting city and municipal council members, including Darya Besedina, Maxim Gongalsky, and Elena Rusakova. The new movement’s organizing committee is comprised entirely of supporters of Urban Projects Foundation co-founder Maxim Katz, who was expelled from Yabloko twice, first in 2017 and then again in 2020, for supposedly damaging the party’s reputation with public scandals.)

🗳️ Federal Penitentiary Service advisory council unanimously selects writer Evgeny Grishkovetz as new chairman (Last week, the agency named council members to new five-year terms, removing more independent voices like activist and journalist Eva Merkacheva in favor of figures like “anti-globalist” Alexander Ionov, who is notorious for filing police reports against the news outlets Meduza, iStories, and Novaya Gazeta.)

International

🗳️ Belarus unveils draft constitutional amendments, plans referendum for February 2022 (5-min read)

On Monday, December 27, the Belarusian authorities unveiled a new draft of the country’s constitution. According to head-of-state Alexander Lukashenko, the document may see changes following public debate and will be put to a referendum by late February 2022. This will mark the third referendum on amending Belarus’s constitution since Lukashenko came to power in 1994. Changes made to the constitution in 1996 and 2004 broadened the powers of the president — and the draft amendments have the potential to not only keep Lukashenko in power, but also to shield him permanently from prosecution.

☎️ Biden agrees to hold another phone call with Putin on Thursday afternoon (a National Security Council spokesperson told CNN that the two presidents will discuss “a range of topics, including upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia”)

📺 Federal media regulator adds Netflix to audiovisual services registry, requiring the company to carry 20 Russian TV networks (the new requirements, which enter force in March 2022, also force Netflix to operate in Russia through a local legal entity that is 80-percent owned by Russian partners)

🏒 Putin and Lukashenko played ice hockey in St. Petersburg on Wednesday (Their team won a friendly game 18:7 and the two heads of state scored seven and two goals, respectively. Lukashenko’s 17-year-old son Kolya also scored four goals.)

🩺 Foreigners visiting Russia for more than 90 days must submit to fingerprinting and regular mandatory medical exams (Tests will screen for STDs, tuberculosis, and drug use. Promising further clarification soon, the Health Ministry has denied earlier reports that checks must be repeated every three months. The exams are expected to include blood tests, X-rays, and even CT scans. Depending on enforcement, the policy could affect migrant workers from Central Asia most of all.)

⚛️ Rosatom subsidiary wins federal approval to buy German enterprise software despite Russia’s import-substitution goals (the company has pledged to implement domestic tech solutions by 2023, but experts say this timeline is unrealistic)

Yours, Meduza