Anatomy of the massacre

Kirill Martynov and Alexey Fedyarov: How to explain the atrocities of the Russian army in Ukraine?

Sergey Medvedev: Today we will talk about the abyss that opens before our eyes, when more and more evidence of torture, rape, mass executions, the genocide that the Russian army in Ukrainian cities are becoming known. Is this an excess, or is it part of a certain terrible terrible norm of culture of violence that exists in Russia? Will this violence return from Ukraine to Russia? What are its roots? The program participates: Pavel Kanygin , journalist, Kirill Martynov , editor -in -chief of Novaya Gazeta. Europe , and Alexei Fedyarov , lawyer, writer.

Video version of the program

The roots of cruelty in the pyramid of violence, which has been lined up in the Russian army for decades

Correspondent: Human rights organizations have already gathered hundreds of evidence and evidence of war crimes of the Russian army, repeated violations of the Geneva Convention. Some experts already say that the concept of "genocide" is applicable here. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation continues to reject the accusations, calling evidence, video and photo supposedly the next provocation of Kyiv.

Psychologists note that such a soldier’s behavior can be caused by several factors: the desire to scare and take revenge, a sense of impunity and a sense of power in the conditions of war, in which people become savages, as well as Russian propaganda, which detects Ukrainians, turning them into second -grade people into the eyes of Russians. But some experts also say that cruelty was originally part of the Russian strategy in the war, and its roots in the pyramid of violence, which has been lined up in the Russian army for decades.

Sergey Medvedev: Journalist Pavel Kanygin , author of the project "Continuation should" with us. The current violence in Ukraine is something new to you? Are you surprised by these shots from Buchi, Mariupol, Irpen?

Pavel Kanygin: No, they are not surprised. This is the transfer of the usual practice of Russian traditional management to neighboring states, which emerged from this practice in 1991. Then it became slowly, with a creak to rebuild, already moved away from this tradition, and now, after 30 years, they again dumbfounded the head on the head. A consumer attitude towards people, the use of a person at best as a means, and most often people in this war were simply not noticed. The same so -called "militias" seized residential buildings in Donetsk, Lugansk and other places, shot from there at the positions of the Ukrainian army.

The most striking example is the legendary nine-story building, the headquarters of Givi and Motorols, who in a residential building arranged their firing point, their office, where the looted, where they lived, drank. Several pensioners continued to live in this house, who lost their hearing, distraught from constant shooting. At the same time, they praised Givi and Motorola for protecting them from the "Ukrainian fascists." Of course, the question arose: "How can you fight like that, because you endanger people?" Givi and I had a conversation about this, but he did not even understand this question: how is it - we protect them, and if we die, we will die all together for a just cause.

Sergey Medvedev: Is this violence with the permission of commanders, officers?

The commander gave the order, and you fulfilled it - both are a crime

Pavel Kanygin: The commander gives an order: it is necessary to occupy a certain territory, area, residential arrays. The soldiers walk on the apartments, knock, they can put up the owners door, take everything they need. They can take cars, as they did in 2014 and are now already doing the Russian military. Everything is dictated by the so -called "wartime rules." If the locals have not left, then they agree to collaborate with these military. Some commander can say: "We need to eat, find us chickens, ducks, meat." And now the soldiers go and look for where to get it. If the apartment is open, you can go and plunder, if there are owners there, you need to force them to give it. The commander gave the order, and you fulfilled it - both are a crime. This is a vicious circle: the military who commit the atrocities may not want to commit them, but the order legitimizes the act of their commission.

See also the Ukrainian police reported the death of 269 civilians in Irpen

Sergey Medvedev: But mass rape! How does the command look at this? Is there really no proceedings on this subject, field courts?

Pavel Kanygin: The situation in the Kiev region and, for example, in Chechnya are a little similar: both there and there, for many military, there was an absolutely surprise by a warlike hostile meeting from the local population. The Ukrainian military began to carry out just massive fire on them. A tough meeting from the military, the hatred of the local population, you are locked in the territory that you have bad for yourself. In this situation, there is a gradual fall of morality, understanding - what are we doing here, for what? Not that they are not waiting for us, they will kill us here!

Pavel Kanygin

And there are representatives of the nasty side, the enemy is the local population. In the eyes of the military, they still, one way or another, collaborate with the Ukrainian authorities, which poses a deadly threat to them. And in relation to the enemy you can do everything! You are afraid, you are in mortal danger, you have nothing to eat. And if you attribute here a still certain stressful situation, reinforced by possible mental disorders, this story begins when people commit crimes, including rape. Someone is fighting with this, but there is no institutional struggle as such from the army, especially since we see the whole crisis, all the devastation, which has not passed in the army, despite Serdyukov’s reforms and Shoigu: rub this shell, and there will be the same Soviet army under it.

The Americans are writing a lot now that the main flaw in the Russian army is the lack of a team spirit of the junior leadership, the so -called sergeants. This is simply not! There is an ordinary composition, there are colonels and generals who distribute the commands from somewhere from afar, not knowing what is happening on the ground, forcing the soldiers to fulfill orders who have nothing to do with reality. In order to change this situation, the supreme commanders must come to places, look with their own eyes what is happening and make tactical decisions. Therefore, so many colonels and generals die in the war.

The devastation in the army has not gone anywhere, despite the reforms: eat this shell, and under it there will be the same Soviet army

Sergey Medvedev: Pavel, all this is done by regular troops, and not some special units, like the Sonderkomanda, the SS men from the Nazis? Then it was said that Wagner's PMC acted in Buch, that these were the Kadyrovites.

Pavel Kanygin: I think these are the most ordinary regular troops. Both grandfathers - a common place for the entire Russian army, and the manifestation of cruelty in relation to civilians is a common thing. At the same time, of course, we see reports that, yes, there are Kadyrovites who are distinguished by cruelty, but there are Chechens who, according to the stories of local residents, behave quite adequately, they are ashamed of what they do, but they fulfill orders, because if they refuse, they can suffer their families in Chechnya. This is typical for such enclosed communities as prison, army, orphanage.

Sergey Medvedev: That is, traditional Russian practice, simply enhanced by weapons, pumped up by propaganda and hatred for Ukrainians, came to tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Our guest is Kirill Martynov , editor -in -chief of Novaya Gazeta. Europe.

Kirill Martynov: Probably no one has done so much to divide our neighbors as Russian television over the past ten years. I would suggest a little wider to look at this question. I do not want to justify anyone. Russian troops commit crimes that will be investigated sooner or later. But the animal behavior Konrad Lorenz believed that aggression is inherent in living organisms, including people. In the pre -war era, we talked a lot about the fact that the main problem of the Russian Federation is a very high level of social inequality. People know very well that they are poor, they are robbed, they have no prospects. And they had no, even an emotional way out of this state. They saved aggression inside, and they had nowhere to withdraw it.

Sergey Medvedev: In fact, in Ukraine, a valve of that giant social resentment, associated with monstrous inequality, which has been accumulating inside Russian society, was struck by the valve of that giant social resentment.

Kirill Martynov

Kirill Martynov: A significant part of the soldiers are immigrants from poor regions, from small cities and villages, including with a pronounced ethnic component. Empires often die when they have an excess of soldiers, young men who literally shine. In this situation, the empire begins the war. Now they went to war and self -realized in a very perverted sense of the word. And this strange story about trophies legalized by the memory of the Second World War ... Sending stolen things home, people thereby realize social justice.

In Russian society, aggression has been accumulating for decades, some enemies were always needed that could be accused of everything, it was impossible to change power. We could not achieve this, turned out to be the loser in this struggle with the growing dictatorship. Ukraine is such a bridgehead.

Empires often die when they have an excess of soldiers, young men who literally shine

Sergey Medvedev: Yes, instead of shifting the Kremlin, it suddenly rushed towards Ukraine.

Kirill Martynov: Yes, this charge went to Ukraine.

Sergey Medvedev: Alexei Fedyarov , lawyer and writer, join us. Alexey, the current unprecedented cruelty of the Russian military in Ukraine-is this part of some special zone of violence that formed there? Or is it part of some general Russian culture of violence, which we have talked about more than once-violence in prison, in the police department, in jail?

Alexey Fedyarov: I would single out three criteria. This is some kind of crazy, in ugly forms of patriotic militarism, which has nothing to do with real patriotism. This is the deepest penetration of prison culture into all layers that somehow relate to military and law enforcement. And poverty as the main factor. People from depressed poor regions fall into Buch or Irpen and see that people live as they themselves will never live. This drives them crazy, and they begin to do what can be done in conditions of impunity, and impunity always gives rise to cruelty, as in the same prison.

You look at how many areas for former bodies of organs! Their number is growing and growing. You listen to how they communicate with each other, how the Foreign Ministry speaks: “lawlessness”, “hitting” and so on, this is a prison subculture.

See also in the Kyiv region a new mass burial of residents was found

Sergey Medvedev: And this prison culture suddenly arrived on a tank in Ukraine, received Kalashnikov in the hands of a grenade launcher or even a “point U” missile.

Alexey Fedyarov: Yes, this is the same Russian prison in which the soldiers act as a prison special contingent, and the commanders as either looking or the administration of the colony.

Sergey Medvedev: And Ukrainians are like tolerated or lowered, lower prison caste.

At this intersection many factors came together. A lot of black swans flew and lost to the pack

Alexey Fedyarov: These are people who were allowed to rob and do anything about them.

Sergey Medvedev: Will it return to Russia? Can be expected to grow crime when hundreds of thousands of people will return from this hell?

Alexey Fedyarov: At this intersection, many factors came together. Many black swans flew and lost in the flock. In addition to the growth of general crime, which has been observed for the past few years, we have absolutely defeated criminal investigation units that restrained crime. Now there is no control against organized crime. Absolutely corruption of the OEP.

Alexey Fedyarov

Finally, a reverse wave went: people leave the colonies: they have a plus or minus for 30 years, they have neither education nor family, they are forced to marginalized by the state. Plus the advancing total poverty and hopelessness. Of course, this will first entail the growth of street crime, and then all this will develop into much more organized forms than in the 90s. This must be expected on the segment of literally three to nine months.

Sergey Medvedev: The dehumanization of Ukrainians plays a large role in these murders: in the mass consciousness of Russians, they turn into a kind of biomass, into second -class people. Some in this regard say that in Russia it is no longer just fascism, but Nazism, the idea of racial superiority of the Russian nation over Ukrainians.

Kirill Martynov: In history about the new Russian fascism, I am surprised that the people who practice him, as if just was born, have not read anything, know nothing about the twentieth century. It does not even occur to them that what Russian society is doing now, having come up with a new swastika, new enemies, being crowded with the experience of its own greatness and its own right to violence. We all know very well how it usually ends.

Sergey Medvedev: What are the reasons for such a phenomenal insensibility, lack of empathy, moral and simply human anesthesia, which is now observed in the Russian population?

Kirill Martynov: There are two reasons. The first is purely technical: this is serious money that was invested in the destruction of media and in the span of propaganda in all areas of our lives. Accordingly, now not only state structures are involved in propaganda, but just everything that happens in Russia, everyone should have some kind of Z badge to show their loyalty. And then those people who wanted to sit in Russia in the hope of the fact that everything is normalized, because silence will not be a sufficient condition for continuing their calm life, will be especially worth it.

In Russian society, aggression has been accumulating for decades, some enemies were always needed that could be accused of everything

The second reason is much more serious. The Russians do not want to know the truth about this violence, because such a mechanism works: if our army does it, then who are we? What is the meaning of the existence of our country? Who is responsible for this? In fact, the truth about this war is attacked by the central myth built in the era of Putin, the myth that we defeated the Nazis. Yes, we defeated the Nazis, but, therefore (this is the national myth), in a sense, everything is allowed to us, and all our enemies will always be Nazis, and our business will always be right. And if at least at least one point you admit that the world media does not lie about Ukraine, then you have very serious questions to yourself.

Sergey Medvedev: If we allow the truth about Buch and Mariupol, then the whole picture of the universe is collapsing.

Kirill Martynov: Yes, we need to hold on to the idea that we are good people who have not threatened anyone with a war, live in a good country that protects justice and order in the world since 1941.

Sergey Medvedev: Is this collective mass hypnosis?

Kirill Martynov: Rather, a consequence of deep disunity, apoliticality of people, when everyone stands for himself, misunderstanding. So I find out the truth, I admit that the Russian army leads a bloody criminal aggression against Ukraine, and how can I live with this information?

Sergey Medvedev: Imagine that after the war there is a kind of normalization. Will Russian society ever be capable of understanding and repentance?

Kirill Martynov: Even in a moderately optimistic future, the drama of divided families, friendly companies and professional groups will still remain, just as it remained after 2014. But now it will be many, more intensively. And the only way for Russian society to awareness of what happened is the deepest public conflict, comparable, perhaps only with what happened in the history of the Red and White a hundred years ago.

Sergey Medvedev: That is, the civil war and its permission through an act of repentance and understanding.

In Buch, Irpen and other places, not only Ukrainian civilians and soldiers were killed - they killed us all, killed Russia. And until we realize this, we will not work out this injury, we will not find the ability to repent, until Russia resolves this moral catastrophe, it has no right to exist either as a nation or as a state.