Russian Realities

Last summer, I talked with Natan Sharansky, the Israeli statesman who, for nine years, was a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. He told me the following: In some respects, the situation for dissidents and political prisoners in Putin’s Russia is worse than in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. In other respects, it is better.

One way in which it is better? Political prisoners are allowed to have lawyers. (For the piece I wrote, detailing my conversation with Sharansky, go here.)

Well, here is some news circulated by Maria Pevchikh, who works for Alexei Navalny’s foundation (in exile, of course). Navalny, as you know, is widely seen as the leader of Russia’s political opposition and, as a result, is a political prisoner.

• On September 30, were you feeling in the holiday spirit? Did you kick up your heels on Reunification Day?

• Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, makes a very important point here:

In my experience, Russian officials, including media employees, are more candid than their Western apologists. The Westerners will say, “Well, you know, neocons, gays, Soros,” and the Russians will say, “No, we want to conquer peoples and nations, as is our right and destiny!”

• Listen to this Norwegian general — who puts me in mind of something that Caspar Weinberger noted, many years ago:

Weinberger, when he was U.S. defense secretary, pointed out something about the border between West Germany and East Germany: NATO soldiers were facing east, and Warsaw Pact soldiers were facing east. The Warsaw Pact had no fear whatsoever of a NATO invasion. They wanted to keep the people under their control from escaping.

Putin doesn’t fear invasion. He just cries “Encirclement!” like Kremlin rulers before him, which serves two purposes: to distract the Russian people from their misery, and to get gullible people in the West to say, “Yeah, we’re encircling them. Stop poking the bear!”

Vladimir Bukovsky emphasized this lesson to me, with total disgust — at Western gullibility.

• The Russian state has aired another military-recruitment ad. (To read about it, go here.) Two soldiers are in a trench, talking about the future. One says, “Do you know where Pechersk Hills is, in Kyiv?” The other says, “It’s downtown. My aunt lives there. It’s a cool area.” The first soldier responds, “I have a dream. I want to buy an apartment there. When the war is over and we recapture Kyiv, I will move my family there.” A graphic on the screen says, “Choose the city of your dreams.” The second soldier says that he would prefer to live in Odessa, because “I love the sea.”

Remember: Putin is assaulting Ukraine, and trying to re-subjugate it, because he fears “NATO encroachment.” You can read this on a thousand American websites, or hear it on a thousand American TV programs and such, any minute of the day.

• A bulletin from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:

On September 8, the EU announced sanctions on six individuals, including two judges and one prosecutor who took part in the politically motivated proceedings against Vladyslav Yesypenko, and two officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) who are responsible for torturing the journalist.

Vladyslav Yesypenko is an RFE/RL contributor who has been imprisoned in Russian-occupied Crimea since March 2021. During his trial, Vladyslav testified that he was tortured with electric shocks to extract a false confession. He is currently serving a five-year sentence.

To read the rest, go here. And let us spare a thought for Vladyslav Yesypenko and those like him.

• Meduza is a highly valuable news organization. It is a Russian news organization, or, put another way, a news organization composed of Russians. It is based in Riga — for independent journalism cannot be practiced in Russia itself. Even though they are in exile, however, these journalists are in danger. Putin is no respecter of borders, obviously.

Something to note:

As an American journalist, sittin’ in America, I hardly risk anything. (Mean tweets? Bad “comments”? Disinvitations?) I am humbled, honestly, by what Russian and other journalists risk.