Translated material
Capification of Russia
Olga Romanova and Ivan Pavlov: How far will the political terror go in the country?
Sergey Medvedev: Russia lives according to the laws of wartime. New foreign agents and undesirable organizations are announced, they plant people for "fakes" and "discrediting", and the media, social networks, and the cultural sphere are subjected to total cleaning. Is there a limit to these repression? Does their population support? With us Olga Romanova, head of the Rus Sitting Foundation , and Ivan Pavlov, lawyer, founder of the project 29 and First Department .
Video version of the program
Correspondent: in 2022, according to the OVD-Info, the Russian authorities made about 21 thousand detentions and opened about 370 criminal cases for anti-war statements and speeches, 11 sentences for the Stateizer's Affairs were issued. Talking about the return of the death penalty is heard again. Unwalted media and Internet resources are blocked, every Friday is complemented by an already huge list of "foreign regents".
All rallies last year were brutally suppressed, during the shares the police used excessive power, in the Department of Internal Affairs, the detainees were subjected to beatings and humiliations. Most of opposition citizens and politicians left, and who remained in Russia, or sits in prison, or is not able to openly express their opinion, being under the threat of criminal prosecution or even physical reprisal. Many politicians who have fallen in jail are subjected to torture and psychological pressure. Aleksey Navalny in the total amount was assigned 113 days of a schizo.
Most opposition politicians left or are in prison
Sergey Medvedev: Olga, is this a big terror, or is it still a big fear?
Olga Romanova: All the most interesting, unfortunately, is still ahead, since so far the authorities still fought with the opposition, with protests, with dissenters. But there are more and more enemies: they have already switched to mothers of mobilized, an organization that has nothing to do with the opposition. They simply do not want their sons to go to war - this is already a sufficient crime. We see that they are fighting with children. More recently, in the Kuzminsky District Court there was a meeting where the behavior of an 11-year-old girl was considered who did not want to go to lessons called "Talking about the important." This court with a judge, prosecutor, guardianship! I think that in the near future the circle of enemies will expand, and then there will already be real repressions.
Sergey Medvedev: But here, nevertheless, a certain degree of activism is required from a citizen, but there is still no large, random terror. If you sit quietly, like a mouse under a broom, not to write in social networks, not to speak openly and not have forbidden organizations on the smartphone, then a citizen may well exist comfortably.
Olga Romanova: I don't think. I see that Wagner is no longer PMC, but the Ministry of Defense came to prisoners. And still comments are coming: "Let them better come for them than for us." But soon they will come to everyone else. It is not enough not to write anything in social networks. You can talk with a friend in a restaurant, and then people at the next table call the cops: they come, plant a husband who left to smoke, they are fined ...
Sergey Medvedev: What can this be compared with? So far, we have a comparison with North Korea, Iran to the side. Is this, relatively speaking, Belarus, which always went about two or three steps ahead of Putin?
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov: Somewhere nearby, but, probably, with its specifics. Yes, the purpose of this terror is the imposition of fear that people abandon any protest, at least simply observe loyal neutrality. It is probably not worth comparing with the 37th year, because fear is always planted by the spread of certain information, a certain signal coming from the authorities. Now this signal can be distributed using new information technologies. If Comrade Stalin, the Internet, maybe there would be no mass repressions in the 30s of the twentieth century: with the help of the Internet and propaganda means, you can achieve the same effect by fewer victims.
Sergey Medvedev: "Mediazone" or "OTD-info" considered that on average one person a day is declared a foreigner. The Ministry of Justice entered the operating mode.
If Comrade Stalin have the Internet, maybe there would be no mass repressions
Ivan Pavlov: But in the face that there are more than 140 million people in Russia, this is not so many. Now the registry is just a little less than 500 persons, including legal entities and unregistered associations. This is no longer repression, because most of these persons do not live in Russia, and these dragon restrictions do not concern in any way. For example, I have nothing left in Russia from property, and there is even a desire to delve into what I should do in accordance with these rules, what dies to put. But, of course, we will certainly raise this issue in the "beautiful Russia of the Future."
Olga Romanova: If you continue to somehow exist in Russia, albeit not physically, if you have relatives, real estate, work, correspondents, people you are responsible for, you still put these dies. Still, Medusa lasted a long time as a foreign agent: this gave the opportunity, albeit very kutsuya, to work its correspondents in Russia (now it is no longer possible), so this foreign dick was justified.
Sergey Medvedev: And how massly can they come for relatives? In Belarus, this is already a standard practice. Now we have seen how this happened to Timothy Kulyabin, the father of Alexander Kulyabin.
Olga Romanova: Recall that they came with searches to Peter Verzilov’s mother, to the parents of Roman Dobrokhotov, but to whom they just did not come! This is your favorite entertainment. And very often, people who are at the sight think not so much about themselves as about a grandmother or mother, who will break with a search at six in the morning.
Sergey Medvedev: The lawyer Dmitry Pravtov argues.
Dmitry Pravtov: There will be new things. At the end of the year, the president signed a decree on an increase in the regular number of security forces. Almost a thousand investigators, almost 28 thousand police officers will increase. In the budget of the Russian Federation, the financing of the power block by almost 100 billion rubles has been increased in a record way, and the total amount that the state will spend on the police, Rosguard, SKA, FSIN, FSB and the prosecutor’s office will amount to 2.91 trillion rubles-this is 27-30% of the federal budget.
In the budget of the Russian Federation, the financing of the power unit by almost 100 billion rubles has been increased in a record way
We expect new legislative initiatives that will be intended for the expropriation, redistribution of property of people who criticize the party and the government, in favor of the state, read - in favor of the power block. No need to think that this will affect only activists. This will concern everyone, including absolutely neutral people, because the way of managing such a vertical of subordinate power structures is always a “stick”. They will simply make things more actively, because they will require reporting. We know many cases when things were fabricated against people who did not engage in any activism, for example, Siberian teenagers who built the FSB building in Minecraft, and then exploded it there. These people will still fall under the distribution, because the power unit is arranged in this way, so the motivation system is arranged.
Dmitry Grazov
Sergey Medvedev: Olga, can expropriation wait?
Olga Romanova: Of course, there will be not only political affairs. It is completely frank that it is always characteristic of our "durable" organs. Take at least the case of telegramers: several dozen people have already been arrested, something wrong and not such and who told about the surroundings of Chemezov and Cheyzov himself. These were not protest, not opposition channels, rather the opposite: just the other side of the authorities. But this does not interfere with arresting a bunch of people.
In 2022, a complete rupture of the logistics connection between the crime, violation and punishment occurred. Prisoners and even people from the pre -trial detention center are taken to war and everyone forgives them! And here is equality. The fact that before it was possible only an elite (commit crimes and not to be punished) is now possible for everyone. Why does a simple deep people support power so? Because they were suddenly put on one step. But who does not agree with this, he will be responsible for the full program!
Sergey Medvedev: And how do law enforcement officers relate to this that such an agent Wagner and all the work of thousands of operas, judges, FSINITS COULD COUNT under the tail?
Ivan Pavlov: The system has long been configured not to follow the letter of the law. What is more stable in Russia - a law or a person in the Kremlin? Of course, a person in the Kremlin. Therefore, it is easier for any official to follow the signals emanating from there than to read some law that can easily change.
In 2022, a complete rupture of the logistics connection between the crime, violation and punishment occurred
Sergey Medvedev: Are there places in the colonies-are they preparing for some political affairs?
Olga Romanova: The colonies, of course, are not empty, but they are not for the opposition, because the opposition has been hazed almost under the root. They are, for example, for Ukrainians. I'm not even talking about prisoners of war, but, for example, about Ukrainian prisoners. In November, 2.5 thousand prisoners from the Kherson and Nikolaev regions for some reason were moved to Russia, there they are sitting out. Many scandals and mysterious stories are connected with this. So, last week 14 prisoners tried to cross the border with Latvia, and they almost succeeded. These are Ukrainian prisoners from Kherson, who have ended with a term. Here are 14 people, the FSIN employees put them on the bus, took them to the Latvian border and released there - go, we are deporting you. The first two groups passed with Ukrainian passports, and in the third the guy did not have a Ukrainian passport, only a certificate of release. And then the Latvian border guards realized who came to them, but did not understand why. They were all deported back. They traveled around the country for a long time, and in the end they were returned to the center of temporary detention of foreigners in the Volgograd region. What to do with them is incomprehensible.
With all Ukrainians in Russia, especially with displaced, experts work. They all are offered accelerated obtaining Russian citizenship and cooperation with a variety of low -sympathetic bodies. But in general, the penitentiary department over the past year was terribly humiliated and trampled: some horseradish comes from a mountain without authority and takes the prisoners, previously exporting the entire leadership of the zones in the cold. They are taken away, and you spin as you want - communicate with relatives, write the answers where they are: this is your work so that they do not disappear from you. Their earnings that consisted of two parts have very much decreased - this is promka (prisoners work, money goes to your pocket) and trading of parole. Now there is no parole - go to Wagner. Of course, they are terribly unhappy with all this and feel not “ice under the Major’s feet”, but by camp dust. However, there is an opportunity to come off: here, for example, Navalny. And where they can, they demonstrate that they are kings and gods.
Sergey Medvedev: It is very interesting that the practice of denunciation is reproduced among people who have not lived in Stalin and Brezhnev times.
Ivan Pavlov: If earlier the denunciations were hidden, people wrote in the hope that no one would know, now they began to defiantly participate in state repressions.
Sergey Medvedev: And the population, perhaps, supports these repressions? Perhaps this is a kind of cement that even more unites the population?
Now there is no parole - go to Wagner and to the war!
Olga Romanova: Of course! Please note: more and more often they post a completely Stalinist picture, where the collective farm family enters the apartment. They rejoice at the landing of almost everyone: political - and why they might water, economic - and why do they drink blood from the people, PR managers - and what they lie, and so on. It seems to everyone that this will bypass them. There is no understanding, genetic memory.
Olga Romanova
Sergey Medvedev: According to the Levada Center , last year, about 25% of respondents supported the marking and punishment of foreign agents, and now almost 60%. It’s not that people under pain of death forced to say: do you support war? Maybe then we can say that Putin finds some kind of organic form of the national idea, a contract of power and society for Russia? He found this outwardly in confrontation with the West, in the idea of war, but internally finds on the basis of repression. Here is the very strong hand that all the thirsty return of Stalinism has thrown!
Ivan Pavlov: External enemies are now literally all who are abroad, with small exceptions-Belarus, North Korea, a little Iran, some kind of erytrea. But if there are external enemies, then there must be internal. And these are foreign agents, those who collaborate with undesirable organizations, stateizers. But there should not be too many of them: not hundreds of thousands, but hundreds. Here are those firewood that should be thrown into the furnace in order to maintain the level of patriotism, hatred of everything foreign, xenophobia. This is done specifically in order to ensure internal weather in military conditions.
Sergey Medvedev: Olga, do you expect the death penalty to Russia? In Belarus, she did not go anywhere. It seems to me that the population will support this.
Olga Romanova: Of course, it will support! I am absolutely sure that in the near future the death penalty will return to Russia. There are already extra -court executions, Russian citizens are completely openly executed in Wagnere, and even under the record that is distributed, and no one refutes this. And this is not interested in either the prosecutor's office or the Investigative Committee.
Sergey Medvedev: Now, in Ust-Labinsk, with the full approval of the students, the teacher has spent two guys. He was fired, and the students demand to return him - "normal male education." Do you expect the spread of new repression agents?
Here is the very strong hand that all the thirsty return of Stalinism has thrown!
Olga Romanova: Of course! This is such an initiative from below - Cossacks, dousing girls who are not so dressed. Put out with rods, pour greenishness, burn the house, drive out of the city, write something on the door, throw up a cut pork head ... So far, everything will go deeper, worsen. And the most important thing is that soon there will be repressions not for the fact that you said something, but for not saying, but it was necessary to say something about greatness, depth and height.
Sergey Medvedev: I recall one of the definitions of the fascism of Roland Bart : fascism is not to prohibit saying something, but to force us to speak. And Russia is increasingly evolving in this direction. Terror concerns certain categories of the population, it is not total. But mass media broadcast terror, thereby complementing its function. So the big terror to Russia, perhaps, has not yet come, but great fear has already arrived quite obviously.