“The mysterious death last week of a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin has led a number of high-profile figures to imply that ‘a foreign government’ may have killed an American citizen in the capital of the United States.” https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/26/dan-rapoport-putin-critic-was-it-suicide-00053836
“Dozens of Russian journalists have been murdered since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation. They weren’t covering shooting wars or riots but powerful Russian institutions. A surprising number have implausibly fallen or slipped to their deaths.” (NPR April 2018) https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling
A Moscow court sentenced reporter Ivan Safronov to 22 years in prison Monday, Russia’s first treason conviction for a journalist since 2001.
Safronov, a defense journalist at top Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti who went on to work for state space agency Roscosmos, was convicted of collecting secret information about the Russian military and handing it to spies for the Czech Republic. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/05/russia-jails-journalist-safronov-for-22-years-on-treason-charges-a78722
The case against Safronov was retaliation for a 2019 article in newspaper Kommersant on Moscow’s sale of fighter jets to Cairo that triggered a diplomatic scandal, the BBC Russian Service reported last week, citing correspondence between Egyptian and Russian officials.
Though case materials are classified, investigative media outlet Proekt published a copy of the indictment last week, arguing the “state secrets” Safronov is alleged to have divulged were mostly available online.
Lawyers representing Safronov have also come under unprecedented pressure.
Both Smirnov and Pavlov fled Russia last year.
In a separate case, Safronov lawyer Dmitri Talantov was arrested in June for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army.
A former member of Russia’s Duma who was expelled for anti-Kremlin activities has claimed that Russian partisans were allegedly behind a car bomb which blew up the daughter of one of Vladimir Putin’s close political allies on the outskirts of Moscow.
“This action, like many other partisan actions carried out on the territory of Russia in recent months, was carried out by the National Republican Army (NRA),” Ponomarev said. He was speaking in a 7pm broadcast on February Morning, a Russian-language opposition TV channel he launched in Kyiv earlier this year.
He added: “A momentous event took place near Moscow last night. This attack opens a new page in Russian resistance to Putinism. New – but not the last.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/21/ex-russian-mp-claims-russian-partisans-responsible-for-moscow-car-bomb
Security forces detained more than 1,300 people in Russia on Wednesday at protests denouncing mobilization, a rights group said, hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first military draft since the second world war.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that organizing or participating in protests could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Authorities have issued similar warnings ahead of other protests. Wednesday’s were the first nationwide anti-war protests since the fighting began in late February. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/russia-protests-more-than-1300-arrested-at-anti-war-demonstrations-ukraine
Independent Russian human rights media monitoring group OVD-Info spokeswoman Maria Kuznetsova told CNN by phone that at at least four police stations in Moscow, some of the anti-war protesters arrested by riot police were being drafted directly into Russia’s military.
When asked on Thursday about reports of people detained at anti-war rallies being handed subpoenas for military conscription, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the practice “is not against the law. There is no violation of the law here.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/22/europe/russia-protests-partial-mobilization-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html
Just over half the detained protesters whose names were made public are women, OVD-Info also said, making it the biggest anti-government protest by share of women in recent history. The watchdog specified the full scale of the arrests remains unknown, however.
Approximately 300,000 African Americans served in the Vietnam War. In 1965, African Americans filled 31% of the ground combat battalions in Vietnam, while the percentage of African Americans as a minority in the general population was 12%. In 1965, African Americans suffered 24% of the U.S. Army’s fatal casualties. African Americans saw combat at a higher percentage and suffered casualties at a higher rate. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to the Vietnam War as a white man’s war, a black man’s fight.
Security Alert for U.S. Citizens in Russia / U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia (September 27, 2022): “U.S. citizens should not travel to Russia and those residing or traveling in Russia should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain”. https://ru.usembassy.gov/security-alert-for-u-s-citizens-in-russia/
“…U.S. citizens, including former and current U.S. government and military personnel and private citizens engaged in business, who are visiting or residing in Russia have been interrogated without cause and threatened by Russian officials, and may become victims of harassment, mistreatment, and extortion. All U.S. government personnel should carefully consider their need to travel to Russia.
Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and/or harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and have convicted them in secret trials and/or without presenting credible evidence.
Russian officials may unreasonably delay U.S. consular assistance to detained U.S. citizens. Russian authorities arbitrarily enforce local laws against U.S. citizen religious workers and open questionable criminal investigations against U.S. citizens engaged in religious activity. Russian security services are increasing the arbitrary enforcement of local laws to target foreign and international organizations they consider “undesirable,” and U.S. citizens should avoid travel to Russia to perform work for or volunteer with non-governmental organizations. Russian authorities may not notify the U.S. Embassy of the detention of a U.S. citizen, and consular access to detainees may be denied or severely delayed.
Russia enforces special restrictions on dual U.S.-Russian nationals and may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, including denying access to U.S. consular assistance and preventing their departure from Russia.
The rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression are not guaranteed in Russia, and U.S. citizens should avoid all political or social protests.
(December 28, 2021): Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the liquidation of the country’s most prominent human rights organization, the International Memorial Society, in a decision that dismayed rights advocates.
The ruling signaled the Kremlin’s determination to obliterate dissent, after a year in which authorities have jailed and harassed hundreds of opposition figures, activists, journalists and human rights lawyers, forcing dozens of them to flee the country.
Prosecutors accused the International Memorial Society of violating Russia’s law on foreign agents, which is used by authorities to target rights groups, independent journalists and activists. The court accepted the prosecutors’ call to liquidate Memorial for failing to tag all its materials with a foreign agent label, and it ruled that the organization and all of its regional and structural units would be abolished. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/28/russia-rights-memorial-liquidated/
Vladimir Kara-Murza from prison: In Putin’s Russia, dissent is now ‘treason’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/18/vladimir-kara-murza-putin-treason-indictment/
“My case marks the first moment in post-Soviet Russia when public criticism of the authorities is officially clarified as “treason.” The three counts in the indictment are my address to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly about the illegitimacy of Putin’s term-limit waiver; my speech at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee award ceremony for Russian historian and political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev discussing repression in Putin’s Russia; and my testimony before the U.S. Congress’s Helsinki Commission on the pervasive media censorship imposed by Putin to hide the war crimes his forces are committing in Ukraine.
…Under the Russian Criminal Code, each count of treason carries up to 20 years of imprisonment — this in addition to 14 years on my two previous charges.”
A St Petersburg politician has asked prosecutors to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin for using the word “war” to describe the conflict in Ukraine, accusing the Kremlin chief of breaking his own law.
Putin has for months described his invasion as a “special military operation”. He signed laws in March that prescribe steep fines and jail terms for discrediting or spreading “deliberately false information” about the armed forces, putting people at risk of prosecution if they call the war by its name.
But he departed from his usual language on Thursday when he told reporters: “Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war.” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-politician-files-legal-challenge-over-putins-reference-ukraine-war-2022-12-23/
Opposition politician Ilya Yashin was jailed for 8-1/2 years this month for spreading “false information” about the army. In July another local councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was sentenced to seven years for criticising the invasion.
Yuferev said he had previously drawn authorities’ attention to the use of the word “war” by other prominent figures including Sergei Kiriyenko, deputy head of the presidential administration, and leading lawmaker Sergei Mironov. (see links)
“PRETRIAL DETENTION CENTER 5, Moscow — Among the most stressful aspects of Russian prison life is exposure to government propaganda. Every cell I’ve been in has a television that is constantly turned on — and, with brief respites such as soccer matches during the recent FIFA World Cup, most of the airtime across all major networks is taken up by relentless pro-regime and pro-war messaging not dissimilar to the “Two Minutes Hate” from George Orwell’s 1984. Except that, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, televised hate goes on for hours.
…The leitmotifs are always the same: Russia is surrounded by enemies. The West seeks to humiliate and dismember it. The Soviet Union was a noble and benevolent state — “the empire of good,” as chief TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov put it in a film broadcast on New Year’s Eve — that was destroyed by a mischievous scheme of the Reagan administration with help from domestic traitors. The only reason Russia still exists is because Putin is there to protect it. Ukraine is a Western puppet state run by neo-Nazis through which the United States and NATO are trying to attack Russia. And Russian soldiers on the front lines are heroes defending the motherland.
And so on — day after day, for hours on end. This is the distorted reality that millions of Russians have lived in for years — and it is frightening.”
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/17/karamurza-putin-propaganda-russia-accountability/
Eideard 
Oh yeah, Putin’s Russia is a regular worker’s paradise – just ask Anna Politkovskaya.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj2e0w9VAAAraKs?format=jpg
“The mysterious death last week of a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin has led a number of high-profile figures to imply that ‘a foreign government’ may have killed an American citizen in the capital of the United States.” https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/26/dan-rapoport-putin-critic-was-it-suicide-00053836
“Dozens of Russian journalists have been murdered since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation. They weren’t covering shooting wars or riots but powerful Russian institutions. A surprising number have implausibly fallen or slipped to their deaths.” (NPR April 2018) https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling
“Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil, died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, two sources familiar with the situation said, becoming the latest in a series of businessmen to meet with sudden unexplained deaths.” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/russia-tries-to-restore-supply-lines-in-southern-ukraine-north-korea-could-send-workers-to-rebuild-the-donbas.html
“Several other senior executives with ties to Russia’s energy industry have died suddenly in unclear circumstances in the past few months.”
A Moscow court sentenced reporter Ivan Safronov to 22 years in prison Monday, Russia’s first treason conviction for a journalist since 2001.
Safronov, a defense journalist at top Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti who went on to work for state space agency Roscosmos, was convicted of collecting secret information about the Russian military and handing it to spies for the Czech Republic. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/05/russia-jails-journalist-safronov-for-22-years-on-treason-charges-a78722
The case against Safronov was retaliation for a 2019 article in newspaper Kommersant on Moscow’s sale of fighter jets to Cairo that triggered a diplomatic scandal, the BBC Russian Service reported last week, citing correspondence between Egyptian and Russian officials.
Though case materials are classified, investigative media outlet Proekt published a copy of the indictment last week, arguing the “state secrets” Safronov is alleged to have divulged were mostly available online.
Lawyers representing Safronov have also come under unprecedented pressure.
Both Smirnov and Pavlov fled Russia last year.
In a separate case, Safronov lawyer Dmitri Talantov was arrested in June for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army.
“US asked Russia to release American Marc Fogel on humanitarian grounds, his family says” https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/26/politics/marc-fogel-russia/index.html
“Brittney Griner Case Uncovers Plight of American Prisoner Sarah Krivanek” https://people.com/politics/forgotten-american-woman-sarah-krivanek-jailed-in-russia-with-brittney-griner/
“Texas man detained in Russia for months due to ‘political purposes’: Congressman” https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-detained-russia-months-due-political-purposes/story?id=87831281
“The Telegram-powered news outlet waging guerilla war on Russia” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/the-telegram-powered-news-outlet-waging-guerilla-war-on-russia/
“The partisan movement in Russia and Belarus emerged in Russia and Belarus after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is stated that the movement is acting against the regimes of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus and their armed forces, as well as against civilian supporters of these authorities, in order to prevent the war in Ukraine.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Belarusian_and_Russian_partisan_movement
A former member of Russia’s Duma who was expelled for anti-Kremlin activities has claimed that Russian partisans were allegedly behind a car bomb which blew up the daughter of one of Vladimir Putin’s close political allies on the outskirts of Moscow.
“This action, like many other partisan actions carried out on the territory of Russia in recent months, was carried out by the National Republican Army (NRA),” Ponomarev said. He was speaking in a 7pm broadcast on February Morning, a Russian-language opposition TV channel he launched in Kyiv earlier this year.
He added: “A momentous event took place near Moscow last night. This attack opens a new page in Russian resistance to Putinism. New – but not the last.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/21/ex-russian-mp-claims-russian-partisans-responsible-for-moscow-car-bomb
One-way flights out of Russia are rocketing upward in price and selling out fast after President Vladimir Putin ordered the immediate call-up of 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine.
Putin’s announcement, made in an early-morning television address on Wednesday, raised fears that some men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave the country. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/21/flights-out-of-russia-sell-out-after-putin-orders-partial-call-up
https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-megastar-alla-pugacheva-condemns-putins-war-in-ukraine/
Security forces detained more than 1,300 people in Russia on Wednesday at protests denouncing mobilization, a rights group said, hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first military draft since the second world war.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that organizing or participating in protests could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Authorities have issued similar warnings ahead of other protests. Wednesday’s were the first nationwide anti-war protests since the fighting began in late February. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/russia-protests-more-than-1300-arrested-at-anti-war-demonstrations-ukraine
Independent Russian human rights media monitoring group OVD-Info spokeswoman Maria Kuznetsova told CNN by phone that at at least four police stations in Moscow, some of the anti-war protesters arrested by riot police were being drafted directly into Russia’s military.
When asked on Thursday about reports of people detained at anti-war rallies being handed subpoenas for military conscription, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the practice “is not against the law. There is no violation of the law here.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/22/europe/russia-protests-partial-mobilization-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html
Just over half the detained protesters whose names were made public are women, OVD-Info also said, making it the biggest anti-government protest by share of women in recent history. The watchdog specified the full scale of the arrests remains unknown, however.
Heated protests have broken out in some ethnic minority regions in Russia against Vladimir Putin’s mobilization orders, with activist groups and Ukrainian officials saying these minorities are being disproportionately targeted for conscription in the war. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/26/europe/russia-dagestan-protests-mobilization-intl-hnk/index.html
Approximately 300,000 African Americans served in the Vietnam War. In 1965, African Americans filled 31% of the ground combat battalions in Vietnam, while the percentage of African Americans as a minority in the general population was 12%. In 1965, African Americans suffered 24% of the U.S. Army’s fatal casualties. African Americans saw combat at a higher percentage and suffered casualties at a higher rate. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to the Vietnam War as a white man’s war, a black man’s fight.
Security Alert for U.S. Citizens in Russia / U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia (September 27, 2022): “U.S. citizens should not travel to Russia and those residing or traveling in Russia should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain”.
https://ru.usembassy.gov/security-alert-for-u-s-citizens-in-russia/
“…U.S. citizens, including former and current U.S. government and military personnel and private citizens engaged in business, who are visiting or residing in Russia have been interrogated without cause and threatened by Russian officials, and may become victims of harassment, mistreatment, and extortion. All U.S. government personnel should carefully consider their need to travel to Russia.
Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and/or harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and have convicted them in secret trials and/or without presenting credible evidence.
Russian officials may unreasonably delay U.S. consular assistance to detained U.S. citizens. Russian authorities arbitrarily enforce local laws against U.S. citizen religious workers and open questionable criminal investigations against U.S. citizens engaged in religious activity. Russian security services are increasing the arbitrary enforcement of local laws to target foreign and international organizations they consider “undesirable,” and U.S. citizens should avoid travel to Russia to perform work for or volunteer with non-governmental organizations. Russian authorities may not notify the U.S. Embassy of the detention of a U.S. citizen, and consular access to detainees may be denied or severely delayed.
Russia enforces special restrictions on dual U.S.-Russian nationals and may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, including denying access to U.S. consular assistance and preventing their departure from Russia.
The rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression are not guaranteed in Russia, and U.S. citizens should avoid all political or social protests.
(December 28, 2021): Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the liquidation of the country’s most prominent human rights organization, the International Memorial Society, in a decision that dismayed rights advocates.
The ruling signaled the Kremlin’s determination to obliterate dissent, after a year in which authorities have jailed and harassed hundreds of opposition figures, activists, journalists and human rights lawyers, forcing dozens of them to flee the country.
Prosecutors accused the International Memorial Society of violating Russia’s law on foreign agents, which is used by authorities to target rights groups, independent journalists and activists. The court accepted the prosecutors’ call to liquidate Memorial for failing to tag all its materials with a foreign agent label, and it ruled that the organization and all of its regional and structural units would be abolished. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/28/russia-rights-memorial-liquidated/
Vladimir Kara-Murza from prison: In Putin’s Russia, dissent is now ‘treason’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/18/vladimir-kara-murza-putin-treason-indictment/
“My case marks the first moment in post-Soviet Russia when public criticism of the authorities is officially clarified as “treason.” The three counts in the indictment are my address to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly about the illegitimacy of Putin’s term-limit waiver; my speech at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee award ceremony for Russian historian and political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev discussing repression in Putin’s Russia; and my testimony before the U.S. Congress’s Helsinki Commission on the pervasive media censorship imposed by Putin to hide the war crimes his forces are committing in Ukraine.
…Under the Russian Criminal Code, each count of treason carries up to 20 years of imprisonment — this in addition to 14 years on my two previous charges.”
(Oct 16, 2022) “Russian soldiers have shot dead a Ukrainian musician in his home after he refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, according to the culture ministry in Kyiv.
…Kerpatenko, who was also the principal conductor of Kherson’s Mykola Kulish Music and Drama Theatre, had been posting defiant messages on his Facebook page until May.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/16/russian-troops-kill-ukrainian-musician-yuriy-kerpatenko-for-refusing-role-in-kherson-concert
“Hey, I’m back In the U.S.S.R
You don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the U.S.S.R”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff29h-2WQAE7Xhf?format=jpg&name=small
Consent and social cohesion as a result of the unrelenting application of scientifically engineered persuasion
A St Petersburg politician has asked prosecutors to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin for using the word “war” to describe the conflict in Ukraine, accusing the Kremlin chief of breaking his own law.
Putin has for months described his invasion as a “special military operation”. He signed laws in March that prescribe steep fines and jail terms for discrediting or spreading “deliberately false information” about the armed forces, putting people at risk of prosecution if they call the war by its name.
But he departed from his usual language on Thursday when he told reporters: “Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war.” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-politician-files-legal-challenge-over-putins-reference-ukraine-war-2022-12-23/
Opposition politician Ilya Yashin was jailed for 8-1/2 years this month for spreading “false information” about the army. In July another local councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was sentenced to seven years for criticising the invasion.
Yuferev said he had previously drawn authorities’ attention to the use of the word “war” by other prominent figures including Sergei Kiriyenko, deputy head of the presidential administration, and leading lawmaker Sergei Mironov. (see links)
“PRETRIAL DETENTION CENTER 5, Moscow — Among the most stressful aspects of Russian prison life is exposure to government propaganda. Every cell I’ve been in has a television that is constantly turned on — and, with brief respites such as soccer matches during the recent FIFA World Cup, most of the airtime across all major networks is taken up by relentless pro-regime and pro-war messaging not dissimilar to the “Two Minutes Hate” from George Orwell’s 1984. Except that, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, televised hate goes on for hours.
…The leitmotifs are always the same: Russia is surrounded by enemies. The West seeks to humiliate and dismember it. The Soviet Union was a noble and benevolent state — “the empire of good,” as chief TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov put it in a film broadcast on New Year’s Eve — that was destroyed by a mischievous scheme of the Reagan administration with help from domestic traitors. The only reason Russia still exists is because Putin is there to protect it. Ukraine is a Western puppet state run by neo-Nazis through which the United States and NATO are trying to attack Russia. And Russian soldiers on the front lines are heroes defending the motherland.
And so on — day after day, for hours on end. This is the distorted reality that millions of Russians have lived in for years — and it is frightening.”
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/17/karamurza-putin-propaganda-russia-accountability/