Y’all are so weird for choosing this line of attack. “Look at these guys released from a hellish prison — why do they think of themselves as victims?” And what do you even gain by this?
I’ve never been gaslit as much as on this app. “We never see Russian protests against Putin”. I think I took this picture in Moscow, on a 2021 protest against Putin. Did I dream it up? Is it an elaborate prank? Why do I remember taking it and being beaten by a cop after?
@storyevtime
In this thread I have and can continue to give, multiple examples of mass protests against all kinds of regimes or institutions. Yet, we never see similar examples of mass Russian protests against Putin. In fact, we see the exact opposite like in Berlin.
Being in Tbilisi is so weird, the city is beautiful but I’ve never had this much racism levelled at me by every other city wall. I think us (white) westerners can’t really comprehend what it’s like to be surrounded by hate that’s imprinted in the very physical fabric of a place
My latest for
@FinancialTimes
where I explain the Kremlin’s suffocation of Russian protest w/
@ovdinfo_en
data. I argue that it is not a “Russians’ war” — Russians protest it all the time, but are repressed & made invisible by a powerful apparatus.
Keep your central Asian friends in your thoughts. The alleged Crocus terrorists are Tajik. If that’s fully confirmed I wouldn’t be surprised if the already repressive environment for the millions of Central Asian migrants in Russia becomes even worse.
There’s not as much bloodlust in all of history’s warlords as there is in westerners comfortably tucked in half a world away from the tragedies they so giddily observe
My humble suggestion is not to feel sorry for Russians until they get the fuck out of Ukraine and pay reparations for about 100 years. Until then, anything and everything that happens to Russia is both richly deserved and painfully insufficient.
The Navalny team, including
@pevchikh
, isn't trying to have a civil discussion with the people from the Western countries - we are not their target audience, as this so-called opposition only speaks to other Russians.
They do not care about Ukraine, they care about their future
Navalnaya tweeting in 2014, on behalf of Alexei who’s under house arrest. “Alexei says hi and says “no to war”. This is a decade ago and the Navalnys were already anti-war and anti-Putin
The Russian imperial system also explains why Russia is so violent and warlike. The elites who make the decision to go to war suffer few to no consequences for failed wars, unless there's a rare collapse.
Kremlin loves to portray the US as some mischievous agitator pushing Ukraine into more aggressive action but this is painting a completely reversed picture: Washington trying to contain Kyiv from going too ballistic
This Ukrainian interview is a telling example of the 🇺🇦🇷🇺 war’s omnipresent meta-irony. the interviewee, who’s kitted out with Nazi insignia, is asked to comment on a menorah nearby. “I like this, Israel supports us in this war” he responds, revealing a 🇮🇱🇺🇦 backpack patch
Oh look they’re now straight up sharing nazi propaganda imagery to attack freed political prisoners. So damn weird (that face is from a a German 1940s anti-Soviet painting)
I’m always perplexed by people using “my Russian friends support the war” anecdotes to argue that all Russians support the war. None of my Russian friends support the war, so it feels like selection bias - maybe choose your friends better?
Many young Russians I follow/talk to have been transformed by Israel’s war on Gaza. For lefties in opposition / exile it’s “we thought the west is better than Putin but we see now that they’re all the same”. For more pro-gov or…
@storyevtime
Is there ANY example of an antiwar movement inside a country thats the aggressor that had been largely focused on producing propaganda for the attacked country and supporting it's military, stuff like that? Has it ever happened? Or are Russians just held to a ridiculous standard?
1/3 The funny thing about the most extreme decolonizers is that they DO live in the shared Russian cultural context they so vehemently deny: they operate with Kremlin-drawn borders, and think in what is basically a Russian liberal paradigm on steroids
I love how "decolonizing Russia" maps are both ridiculously out of touch AND absurdly pedantic in a very Russian way ("decolonizing" Russia neatly along the arbitrary and sometimes still disputed borders of "federal subjects," mostly populated by >80% ethnic Russians? really?)
Westerners conceptualise USSR as an antithesis to free movement, but it seems to me that to many people the fall of the USSR meant an end to an unprecedented mobility that they’d never enjoyed after 1991.
Some influencers in western discourse genuinely don’t want Russians to oppose the Kremlin & its war — they’d rather join Putin’s propaganda in dehumanizing & stereotyping Russians. The question is why — is it pure ethnic hatred or greed for grants & other resources?
« Putin bad » is like an « open Sesame » password that Russians can use to open doors in the West. Then they can take scarce resources (material, empathy, time) that could go to Ukr aid and get called brave, all the while bolstering imperialist Ru narratives. A damn shame!
I keep telling y’all, Americans and Russians are incredibly similar, our hawks have the same talking points: an indispensable nation that never attacked or conquered & became a large empire out of the goodness of our hearts
Think for one moment. In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward—except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
@SarahAshtonLV
1/2 Hi sergeant, generally speaking, Russian trans people are one of the most threatened, impoverished & oppressed demographics in the region. Yet many still protest the Kremlin & the war. You can read this thread for more info + resources to help trans Russians.
BREAKING: anti-trans bill that will ban gender-affirming care approved in Russia. Gosduma, the lower house of Parliament approved the bill unanimously in its third reading. But the Kremlin’s assault on trans rights didn’t start overnight. Read these stories to find out more
The Kremlin: all Russians are orcs ready to die for their empire. The Russian anti-war movement must be squashed.
Some decolonial (?) influencers: all Russians are orcs 🤬ready to die 💀for their empire. The Russian anti-war movement must be ✨squashed ✨ ✊🏿✊🏻✊🏼🌈🌈🇺🇦
Israeli soldier wrote the opposition “long live Belarus” slogan on a destroyed building in Gaza. Modern wars are fascinating in how they create postmodernist potpourris of meanings. as wars tend to be meaningless at their course, the void is filled with entirely random stuff
Can his bullshit lead to a civil war? Well, Wagner’s ability to fight rests entirely on Russian state infrastructure (remember how he wasn’t getting enough ammo in Bakhmut?). Without the Russian state they’re just a ragtag band with no ammo/repair/food/logistics.
I’ve met some of the most peace-loving, people closest to the line of conflict. The Gaza envelope, Avdiivka, etc. The more impacted you are the more you want the violence to stop. If someone’s on TV demanding more violence they’re likely comfortably detached.
This is why people repeating the Kremlin propaganda of “Russians never protest” are so repugnant. This is the punishment for speaking out. And bear in mind that Russians - incredibly brave - still protest!
Moscow City Court toughened the sentence for Yury Kokhovets, who gave a street interview to RFE/RL and talked about the war un Ukraine. Instead of 5 years of penal labor, Kokhovets will now have to serve 5.5 years of actual prison time. He was taken into custody in the court
Russian opposition leader Ilya Yashin has been jailed to 8.5 years precisely because of a video about the Bucha massacre. Russians go to the lengths which would be mostly unimaginable in the US to protest the Kremlin’s crimes.
@judeinlondon
I remember the outcry in America after Abu Ghraib, the conversations about "this is not who we are" and "look at what we have done." Show me the similar Russian outcry after Bucha, Izyum, etc. It doesn't exist, because it's not a scandal, it's a day that ends in Y.
🧵Let me tell you about russia’s “Victory” Cult and show you the inherent barbarity of russians. Pay particular attention to the photos! Every now and then in russia you will see commercialised, objectified WWII merch & glamourised memorials…
The Jewish Centre being constructed in Nalchik, in southwest Russia, was going to be the largest Jewish centre in the Caucasus. Today it was set on fire. Perpetrators wrote “death to Jews” on the wall.
“Russians support the war!”
Pro-invasion wannabe warlord Igor Strelkov jailed for 4 years: 0 protests
Anti-war indigenous rights activist Fail Alsynov jailed for 4 years: 1000s protesting
Still think Russians support the war?
Парадоксальная штука, некоторые фрондирующие русим бежавшие от войны и репрессий ударились в своеобразное Z(ionism)-движение на новой родине. Вжух, и бывшие молодые бунтари стали бумерами-националистами угрожающими молодым евреям/израильтянам за ненравящееся мнение
так, а вот после этого слайда я лично обещаю подкасту ЭТОБАЗИС, что я вас, гондонов унылых, из-под земли достану, и людям посоветую.
это буквально кровавый навет и жидовский заговор, помимо того, что пиздеж: и хуситы, и хезболла вписались в войну СРАЗУ, 8/10/23.
суки.
Literally thousands of people marched in Moscow today chanting “Russia will be free” despite the fear of horrific repression. There’s a good future for Russia. Getting there is gonna be hard, gruelling - but we’ll get there regardless
When I started seriously studying Russia in college, my dad, who fled the place as a refugee, couldn’t understand it.
“Why do you need this?” he said. “This is a country without a future!”
I didn’t agree with him then, or when I lived in Russia.
Now I understand what he meant
Both the Kremlin & Western grifters really want Russia to be this fascist empire of evil - but the reality is much more prosaic: a people who mostly just wanna be left alone held hostage by an impotent boomer autocracy parasitising on soviet heritage
@charliekreuz
2/2 It’s always funny to see westerners to point at things like picrelated as if it’s “Russians are going fascist” & not a buncha tired workers getting bused in from at a bureaucrat’s whim to create an illusion of a big crowd
The protests against Navalny’s jailing in ‘21 spun over a hundred cities. “Russians never protest” is the most egregious gaslight in modern discourse. Anyone still perpetuating it on the day of Navalny’s death is malicious. Linking my own thread on these protests below
All jokes aside but Navalny is just another proof of non existent russian opposition and dysfunctional russian society. What was the purpose of him returning? Everyone betrayed him including his team and family. Russians didn't protest and did nothing to release him.
Unironically though, this is what privilege does to a guy - not needing a visa for most places and not having to flee from your own government makes you sincerely believe that visa bans and other such nonsense are fine and cool and progressive
… they even fight for UA on the battlefield! It’s actually crazy, like if you see a westerner screaming about “no-good Russians not doing enough” ask them how much $ they donated to Iraq or if their granddad fought alongside Ho Chi Minh
Thanks to
@spectator
for publishing my op-ed. This was prompted by
@DrRadchenko
’s recent piece which I strongly disagree with, because working at
@ovdinfo_en
showed me that there’s still hope for Russia’s future.
Regardless of how irrelevant NAFO is, the current shitstorm is a symptom of a bigger picture: supposedly trustworthy & well-intentioned people spreading disinfo because it *feels* like the good kind of disinfo. Their response when called out - ignore, deflect, lash out.
Emily becomes a conservative tiktok influencer and moves to Moscow where she falls for a Donetsk milblogger who gets her to embed with Kadyrovites. Hijinks ensue
Риторика будто созданная для того, чтобы ухудшить положение российских беженцев. Ведь чем раньше россияне поймут, что они в одной лодке с сомалийцами, сирийцами, иракцами, етс и начнут с ними солидаризоваться- тем раньше их положение улучшится 1/3
Европа неохотно принимает русских иммигрантов, потому что русские отказываются кошмарить местное население, садиться на пособия и помогать номенклатуре узурпировать власть.
Поэтому они с гораздо большим удовольствием ввезут 20 тысяч сомалийцев, чем одного русского.
just right-wing folks it’s “Israel’s actions in Gaza justify the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine. We see now that this is just how wars are fought.” Very blackpilling overall
Here’s the thing. We currently got two distinct struggles, sometimes interlinked but often at odds. One is a universalist struggle vs authoritarianism. The other is an ethnicised, nationalistic struggle vs “Russians”, whoever they are 1/7
This post about "what Russians must do to be accepted by Ukrainians" betrays a misunderstanding about Russians. It's not 2022 anymore.
As I see it, Russian liberals no longer seek an alliance with Ukrainians or seek their approval or validation.
Let me explain why.
1/
I’m also happy he pointed out that “Ukrainian POWs are defended by Russian lawyers. My comrades, Russian pro-democracy activists are sending them parcels.”
Ukrainian-Russian solidarity very much exists, just not on twitter or fancy conferences
Seeing grifters gleefully exploiting Navalny’s murder to peddle their usual “Navalny was CIA”, “Russians are congenital imperialists” & “Russians never protest” points is just so tiresome at this point. Ok we get it you have no heart, please shut up already
There’s something uniquely heinous about awarding a well-known Nazi (I’ll link proof below) in front of a replica of the Victory Banner the Soviets raised in Berlin in 1945. A perfect example of Putin’s wartime nihilism
I wonder if a movement making a random civilian’s brutal death in front of his family into one of their cutesy symbols might contribute a bit to the “Russophobia card” being played but what do I know
opposition - resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument
Russian opposition should oppose the Kremlin's propaganda narrative, not spread it. Constantly playing the Kremlin's russophobia card by the Russian opposition was bound to produce such a worrying result.
Russians allegedly ask their taxi drivers whether they’re Tajik or not, asking to cancel the ride if yes. The anti-migrant sentiment is prompted by the Crocus attack. This is gonna be terrible.
I remember debating with British academics who were saying we pay too much attention to protesting Russians. Seeing how even British spies don’t know of the numerous anti-war street protests, the conclusion is clear - we don’t talk about Russian anti-war movement nearly enough
(1 of 6)
On 7 November 2023, wives of deployed Russian soldiers conducted what was probably the first public street protest in Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine.
He did not, in fact, call Putin a good guy and the interesting part is that the OP knows it but is misleading his audience to push for atrocious policies
3/3 Navalnaya was mistaken to even mention them — post-2023 they are becoming more obscure every day, as they are having a hard time translating their inherently Russified ideas into a language understandable for policy makers & grant institutions in the West
The only people who think that Sobchak represents the Russian opposition are Sobchak herself + pundits who for some reason think that their audience is made up of idiots unable to google
Russian “opposition”:
“I don’t support Putin or the war, but I don’t want Russia to lose. I don’t like Zelensky because he didn’t negotiate with Putin in May 2022, when Russia occupied huge chunks of Ukrainian territories, including those areas that have been liberated already.”
Proud of Russian progressives for opposing the visa ban for Central Asia and other nationalist crap - remember this is despite the fact that quite a few supposedly progressive influencers from CA built their brand on demonstrative dehumanization of anti-war migrants from Russia
All Russians support the war, Russians think they’re all fighting the west, Russians hate the west…. and other Kremlin propaganda lies which are for some reason regurgitated by supposedly pro-Ukraine people on here
In order to understand Russian anti-war movement’s effectiveness one’s gotta compare and contrast it with other anti-war movements of the recent years. Eg, the US has never achieved anything close, even during Vietnam
Brave and selfless yes but is Russian's peace movement effective? It helped many men leave the country to avoid conscription. And helped Ukraine refugees leave Russia. It keeps the feminist agenda visible. But that is about it. Or am I missing something?
Folks are mocking Estonia’s president and NAFO prodigy Kallas for pushing for visa bans, chastising regular Russians etc while implicated in selling teargas to the Kremlin - but we need to remember that this hypocrisy is omnipresent in Europe, not just Estonia
Wonder what’s going on with Ksenia Karelina, a dual US-Russia national who the Kremlin arrested on treason charges for donating 50 bucks to a Ukrainian charity
It’s actually kinda mind-boggling. Like the Vietcong actually did outreach to anti-war Americans and still didn’t get much asides from Jane Fonda’s photo op. Everyone shuns antiwar Russians are - including Kyiv - but they are still raising $ for refugees, UA military..
Remember, as you read those gloating over Navalny’s (undoubtedly imperfect) record — while Navalny began fighting Putin over a decade ago, many of those presented today as Putin’s main antagonists were willing good buddies with the Kremlin
Girkin/Strelkov/Runov, asides from being a war criminal, is also a LARPer gone too far. The man loved play acting especially as a White Guard & other “great men” from history. Toxic masculinity, a desire to play soldier is an understudied but important motivation in the invasion
I think that people trying to do prigozhin forecasting tend to miss one thing: the guy is really really high on his own supply of toxic soviet boomer masculinity - what may seem as masterful PR strategy or setting up a new civil war is just showing off (понты)
Russian exile just out of prison tries to flee to the EU: visa ban! Send the dirty ruzzian back!!!
Blood money oligarch Ivan Corruptovich who owns a little town in Hungary lands in Prague on a private jet: welcome right in to Europe, good sir!
⚡️⚡️⚡️ Just now in Prague a Russian activist who was peacefully protesting outside of the building owned by the son-in-law of Putin's chief missile advisor was beaten up...BY THIS VERY SON-IN-LAW who turned up in person.
2/3 The critiques they have to offer are mostly downstream of 1990s Russian liberal discourse with its cargo cult of the west, rejection of human rights, racism and campism. They are part and parcel of Russian culture and perhaps it’s this dichotomy that drives them so mad
Talking to nafies is like staring into the abyss: this one went from “no Russian protests against Putin” to “no Russian protests abroad”. Let’s see where they go once they process this pic of a Rus diaspora demo in Prague - ie how long till they go full “Russian untermenschen”
@storyevtime
Oh please stop the memes. The issue here as you well know, is Russian support for a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign. Hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled enlistment and zero of them have marched in their host countries to renounce Putin in any way.
In ‘03, were Americans damaging their own supply lines, setting military offices on fire, donating to Iraqi military? Did American independent media almost universally promote an anti-war stance? I was pretty young during the Iraq war so could’ve missed a lot of this
@Rail_splitter1
@storyevtime
@Kuzmenciy
🤷♂️ Dan also thinks that Russian anti-war resistance is higher in Russia as it wages a genocidal and failing war on its neighbor than in the US during the Iraq War. This is actively deceptive stuff that is actively making the situation worse and not holding people to account
Russian neo-nazis tortured a Crocus attack suspect, cutting off his ear. They’re now auctioning off the knife. Neo-nazis are well-integrated into the Russian security state, fighting in Ukraine & policing the home front.