Peace. War. Two words that couldn’t be more opposite in meaning. And yet both are forbidden in the Russian public sphere. In the eyes of the Kremlin, anyone who calls for peace or talks about war tarnishes the reputation of the Russian army. How exactly both words are intended to discredit the armed forces of Moscow, the powerful gentlemen do not reveal. But they don’t need that at all. The machinery of reprisals is running. The regime relies on hundreds of thousands of officials who willingly hunt down suspected buggers.
This machinery works so well that censorship is now also making its way into private life. A case from the Russian city of Krasnodar testifies to this development. There, two spouses were arrested in a restaurant because they are said to have discredited the Russian armed forces in a private conversation.
Last Monday, Alexei Ovchinikova and his wife Olesya Ovchinikova went to a local restaurant with a friend. On the evening of the incident, Alexei briefly left the restaurant to smoke a cigarette outside, his lawyer told the independent TV channel Dozhd. Meanwhile, the two women talked about the news from Ukraine. However, one stranger did not like the content of the conversation and loudly expressed his displeasure.
“During the conversation, words like special operations and Ukraine were used,” lawyer Alexei Avanesian described the events. “As luck would have it, a man from Donetsk was sitting at the next table.” He warned the two women very roughly and threatened them with violence. “A conflict broke out. The man from Donetsk physically attacked my client. He tried to push her out of the bar. There was no room for such talks there.”
At that moment, Alexei returned to the restaurant from smoking and intervened in the quarrel. The employees then alerted the Russian National Guard, according to the lawyer. “The officials didn’t think twice. They left the man from Donetsk unmolested.” On the other hand, they handcuffed the couple and threw them on the ground.
According to the legal protection organization OWD-Info, the couple is said to have been held for more than an hour. The national guard filmed the event and then published the recording online.
In the publicized frequency, Olesya shouts “Glory to Ukraine,” a patriotic Ukrainian salute. “No, I won’t shut up,” she says, laughing to the officers. “Glory to Ukraine, glory to Zelenskyy. Fuck you assholes!”
“Your mother will be proud of you,” she continues to the man behind the camera. “You’re a superhero,” she adds ironically, unable to suppress a fit of nervous laughter. “I see how ashamed you are of what you are doing!”
In the run-up, the officer is said to have tried to question the young woman. “He asked how she would feel about the special operation. Why she would shout such slogans. He started his own investigation, although that is absolutely not his area of responsibility,” said her lawyer Avanesyan.
After a night at the police station, Olesya was released. She was fined 1000 rubles. But her husband Alexej was sentenced to 15 days of arrest in summary proceedings for “minor hooliganism”. But his lawyer fears that this deadline is only used to initiate proceedings for the “use of force against officials” during this time.
The couple themselves reported that police told them they had arrested them for anti-war remarks. “They were asked where they got their lawyer from. Which organization put him in place. How would they know him? They wanted them to do without a lawyer,” said the lawyer in question. A sentence that Olessja particularly remembered: “Why do you need a lawyer? An innocent person doesn’t need a lawyer. If you call a lawyer, that’s an indirect admission of your guilt,” they tried to convince his client.
The paragraph on misinformation about the Russian army was included in the Russian Criminal Code shortly after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the Russian authorities consider all information about the war in Ukraine that differs from the version of the Russian Ministry of Defense to be misinformation. Violations can result in up to 15 years imprisonment.
Since the introduction of the new paragraph, informers have flourished again in Russia. Teachers blackmail their students, students their teachers, even mothers their children. In December, among others, the 19-year-old student Olessya Krivtsova was arrested after being denounced by two fellow students. She is being investigated for private messages on Instagram and Telegram.
