After announcing the military operation in Ukraine at the dawn of last February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to the stage of “cleansing” in the Soviet manner in an astonishing way to chase his regime against those who were described as “traitors” of opponents of the invasion.
newspaper quoted “Washington PostThe Russian authorities launched a crackdown on all those who oppose the war in a message from Putin to the Russians that “no one can escape” from what he calls “scum and traitors.”
The report quotes how the authorities arrested a technician in the Ministry of Interior for speaking in private on the phone. It also arrested people holding blank placards indicating their opposition to the war.
A woman, who wore a yellow and blue hat in reference to the colors of the Ukrainian flag, was arrested, as well as a Siberian carpenter in Tomsk named Stanislav Karmakskikh who was holding a poster of an 1871 artwork by Vasily Vereshchagin called “The Apotheosis of War”.
Russian authorities are prosecuting a popular food blogger, Nika Belotserkovskaya, with charges under Russian law against the dissemination of “fake war news”.
The blogger, who lives outside Russia, has been posting about Ukrainian refugee children.
The paper says that the speed of Russia’s transition to “self-cleansing” in the “Soviet way” has been astonishing.
And pro-Putin figures are campaigning against opponents of the war, calling them “traitors of the nation”.
A pile of animal droppings was left outside the door of St Petersburg activist Daria Khikinin, Friday, and a severed pig’s head and an anti-Semitic slogan were left on Thursday at the door of Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the arrested liberal radio station “Echo of Moscow”, according to the newspaper’s report. .
And websites have spread encouraging Russians to denounce “traitors”, “enemies”, “cowards” and “fugitives” who oppose the war, according to the report.
The newspaper reports that Marina Ovsyanikova, an employee of state television, is now accused of the misdemeanor of “defaming the army” and accused on air of being a British spy, Kirill Klimeonov, head of the station’s news department.
Ovsyanikova made global headlines on March 14 when she raised an anti-war poster during a news broadcast.
Kirill Martynov, political editor of Novaya Gazeta, was also condemned as a “traitor” and was recently expelled by two universities where he taught two philosophy courses. After telling students that civilians are being killed in Ukraine.
And the “Washington Post” quotes Martynov, who later left Russia, as saying that he fears that the purges have begun, amid deep social tensions due to the war.
Despite the heavy losses among its forces and the failure to achieve the declared goals of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia pledged to continue the military operation, and a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said in a statement, Thursday, that “the Russian army will continue this special military operation until all goals are achieved.” .
The Kremlin says Russia is seeking to “disarm” Ukraine and “uproot its Nazism”.