"Ino -Agent" Mikhail Yezhov: "After Putin there will be even more abruptly people. Even harder"

Last Friday, the Ministry of Justice made a musician and a video designer from St. Petersburg Mikhail Yezhov in the register of the so -called "foreign agents". He left Russia shortly after the annexation of Crimea, against the backdrop of persecution and threats due to disagreement with the actions of the Russian authorities.

The musician connects the inclusion in the list with one of the recent works of his Ezhoff Band group - an anti -war clip for the song "In zero mode", which became a laureate at the Real Film Festival festival in Milan and was nominated for several more awards in Europe and the United States. But the anti -war diary of Yezhov “War through the Emigrant through the Emigrant” - a collection of posts with his thoughts on the consequences of military invasion of Ukraine, which the Facebook regularly deleted.

In an interview with the North. Realia, he talked about how the war split his family, why not only Putin is responsible for it and whether Russia can get out of this on its own.

Mikhail Yezhov is engaged in music, literature, videoography. His satirical videos on Yetube gain millions of views . Before leaving Russia in 2015, he actively participated in protests against rapidly intensifying repression and aggression against Ukraine. At some point, threats began to come to him and his loved ones. He could no longer stay in the country.

- There were more than enough reasons for leaving. Firstly, I saw that the country is going the wrong way with seven-miMic steps. And those methods of the struggle that the opposition chose are insolvent. I realized that further or I was staying, trying to do something else and sit in jail, which in general I was hinted at all kinds of organs, or I was leaving. When my wife and my wife began to threaten with physical reprisal, I realized that I had to leave.

- Were the threats from the security forces?

- No. That's the point. Everything was simple with the police, they said: either stop [your activities], or continue to do, but not here. I did not consider this threats. The threats were on the Internet. And the person who threatened me knew much more than I lay out in open access. My attempts to deal with this did not lead to anything, despite the fact that I was supported by the “team 29” (a human rights organization founded by lawyer Ivan Pavlov, stopped its activities in 2021. - SR) . I realized that we are talking about something serious.

-Does something connect you with Russia now?

- No. In Russia, I have no property, no obligations. I am not a tax resident of this country, I do not pay anything to her. And from this side it is not very clear to me why I have been assigned this status [in foreign agent].

- And how did you learn about your "foreign agency"?

- I woke up, and my wife said to me: "Congratulations, you are a foreign agent!" And this news was sent to her by the wife of another “in agent”. So I found out. But I have not yet seen any official documents on this subject. I still think, well, you never know the musicians Mikhailov Yezhovs?

-Can this somehow affect your life?

- Already affects. And before this title, some of my friends, who remained in Russia, asked me to delete our correspondence. Not even about politics. "Just in case," "from sin away." Now these people will simply stop writing to me, they already stop, because they are scared. And I understand them.

Mikhail Yezhov left his wife to Prague. But it was not easy to legalize there. They moved to Berlin, from which later, as the musician says, they went to Bulgaria with pleasure - to the sea, in silence. Now they live in a house 40 kilometers from the city. Their guests are rare, and if there are, then Ukrainians.

- The Russian -speaking community here is very fragmented, many supporters of Putin. They carry out all sorts of "immortal regiments" there, St. George ribbons and all that. This is not to say that there are more of them in percentage ratio than anti -tuned Russians, but they are more noticeable. But here it is important to say that many opponents of Putin even here, in Bulgaria, still try not to glow at [anti -war] rallies and events, because they are afraid of the consequences in Russia. People can have real estate, relatives, mom, dad or, conversely, children there. They say to me: "Mish, I'm afraid."

"Does not comply with the laws of the Zuckerberg genre"

Since the beginning of the war, Mikhail Yezhov has been conducting an anti -war diary on his Facebook page. He thinks how Russia was at the point of no return, starting this war. How the war cracks families and what does the next generation doom. He writes about propaganda, government, about the possible collapse of the country. These publications diverged hundreds of reposts and gained thousands of comments. But Facebook regularly deleted them.

-People often wrote to me and asked about any post that they read with me, but now they cannot find. And Facebook deleted them, because they do not comply with the laws of the Zuckerberg genre, apparently, Mikhail says with a laugh. - And I carefully kept my notes and eventually decided to collect together. I created the site specifically in the .com zone, posted there some articles that recruited the most reactions. But in less than a month, the site was successfully blocked. Now it is available to everyone except Russians.

After that, one of the subscribers asked Mikhail why he would not collect it all in the book. And so the collection “War through the Estigrant through the Emigrant” appeared - a chronological publication of articles and stories of Yezhov since January 2022, when no one really believed that Russia would begin a full -scale war.

Where did my brother and I dispersed?

This is the name of one of the heads of Yezhov. As a child, parents told them with his brother about the civil war, the musician writes. In childhood, the phrase "his brother went to his brother" he was not very embarrassed, because they often fought because of the toys. Parents decided this conflict simply - they began to give them all the same.

And then everything was the same. But when Russia annexed Crimea, writes Michael, he was sick. And his brother was delighted.

“In theory, it would be necessary to lead himself the same way, but he was delighted as a child, and I was upset as a child. Since then we have no communication. Almost no. I haven’t had a brother, he hasn’t had a brother. We have stopped being brothers since a piece of land. Not even our ... not our ... not our ...

And now, since Putin has little Crimea, I admit the idea that he will go further. And he had already gone. And my brother will go further. And in the end he will come to where I live now. And the machine will instruct me. And I will make an automatic machine. And one of us will have to shoot first. Probably, this is the civil war that I was told about in childhood. When the brother went to his brother. Probably the way it is. But now I just wonder - for what? "

Mikhail has relatives in both Russia and Ukraine. With the first, he almost completely stopped communicating. "Because listening to what [if Russia had not invaded Ukraine] NATO would attack Russia and captured oil with gases, unbearable." But about the total rupture of the relationship, says Yezhov, we are not talking.

“It's your family anyway, you will not get anywhere from this.” You can’t just say that I refuse you. I can't do that, ”he says. - During the Civil War, my paternal relatives emigrated to the United States. And Aunt wrote letters to my father and sent postcards. I think it will be about the same. There are boundaries for which you can not cross. If someone goes from my relatives to kill, then, of course, everything. Here, "I am in the absence, I am powerless," as Tsvetaeva said. But so far it has not reached. What to do to people whose relatives got involved in this war and picked up weapons, I do not know.

The problem is not only in Putin

- The problem is not only in Putin. Many people say that this is not the war of Russians, but its war. But I don't think so. The problem is that many people in Russia are satisfied with such a life. I remember a conversation with a random guy in a bar in the 2000s about what we need a king. I tried to convince him that everything, we have already played these games with the king, we do not need this. We need a parliament. But this idea is still dominated by the king. The people live by inertia. And I do not see the prerequisites for this to change. There is no such thing that people say: "We ourselves must solve our problems, we ourselves must be responsible for our lives, and no king is a decree for us." Therefore, I became a stranger to my homeland.

- And what ways to get out of this can be?

- Previously, many (but not me) believed that the victory of Ukraine in this war would lead to the fact that Russia would change. The people are rebelled, and some internal processes aimed at this change will begin there. But, as practice has shown, Russians generally don't care about everything, even to capture new territories. What was the reaction to Kherson? Captured - well, that means ours. Not captured? Well, okay. We will continue to wet the Ukrainians with rockets, leave it without heat and so on. That is, it turns out that even losses of territories do not lead to some central processes within Russia, which would direct it to, let's say, the path of correction. And I do not see any internal forces that would make the people change their minds.

The most optimal option is external control. External management and planting of completely different options. But this will not happen either. No one will go to the Kremlin, then in order to serve Russians in cinemas , show them atrocities in Buch. This option is also not provided. I just don't see options. I see a completely different option that after Putin there will be even more abruptly people. Even harder.

- Do you think that Putin will replace an even more rigid dictator?

- I do not see other options. After all, Putin is not alone, he has his own team. Such a collective Putin. And his hands are smeared in the blood, the bill of victims goes to a million. And a sharp reversal will not work here, there will be no restructuring. After all, the people became like plasticine, very soft -bodied. And you can sculpt from it now everything you want. In fact, Putin can now get out of the war completely calmly and declare to the Russians that everything - we won. NATO wanted to attack us, we prevented this threat. And they left Ukraine without light. Victory, flags, soldiers go home.