When Putin and his government launched their all-out assault on Ukraine last February 24, they shut down independent media in Russia. They also made it a crime to criticize Russia’s conduct in Ukraine. Many have been imprisoned under this new law. I wrote about one — Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician — yesterday.
RFE/RL (that combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty) tells us about another one: an ordinary Russian, but extraordinary at the same time. His name is Vladimir Rumyantsev, and he is from Vologda, a city in northwest Russia. He has been sentenced to three years in a penal colony. Yulia Paramonova, of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, has the report. It is highly interesting, and illuminating.
After February 24, this Rumyantsev began gathering information from independent media, in any way he could. Russians have become practiced at getting around official bans. Rumyantsev told the court, “In order to evaluate the actions of the authorities, a person needs information, and not just official. As for the official version, life has already taught me not to trust it.”
What a man.
Let me quote from Ms. Paramonova’s report:
Rumyantsev was a “man of the proletariat,” according to his lawyer, Sergei Tikhonov, who said his client had worked several different blue-collar jobs over the years in Vologda, from trolleybus driver to the assembly line of a machine-tool factory. His last job was as a stoker, tending furnaces at local enterprises.
Have some more:
Over the years in his free time, Rumyantsev began to dabble in ham radio. He bought low-power FM transmitters and eventually launched his own radio show from his high-rise apartment.
Mainly, he broadcast music, of various sorts. But after February 24, his programming changed. He started to broadcast about the war, sharing the information he had gathered. Obviously, the police soon came for his equipment, and him.
There is something in Paramonova’s report that I found especially moving. There is a conflict in Rumyantsev’s family, and it must be a conflict found in many Russian families. Wouldn’t you say? Paramonova quotes Sergei Rumyantsev, brother of the prisoner:
“I told him that such activity will not lead to good, that it is a criminal offense. In the spring we talked, but we didn’t find any common ground. He is always in eternal opposition to the authorities; he has his own opinion on everything going on in the country. I don’t know why he believes these people and doesn’t believe the government point of view. He believes Navalny and others.”
As always, I am grateful to RFE/RL and other diligent news organizations, which let us know, not just about events and forces, but about individuals. About who they are and what is happening to them.
I hope someone, somewhere, keeps an eye on Vladimir Rumyantsev. I hope that he survives prison; that he will be free in less than three years; and that he and his fellow Russians will live in a freer country.
In a letter, Rumyantsev mentioned a book, which I have now put on my list: Moscow 2042, by Vladimir Voinovich. According to Wikipedia, this is a satirical novel from 1986, which foretells of a Russia “ruled by the ‘Communist Party of State Security,’ which combines the KGB, the Communist Party, and the Russian Orthodox Church.” Said Vladimir Rumyantsev, in his letter, “I didn’t expect it to become a reality.”