On the First Putin Remark About the Crimes and Victims of the Crime: When Crimes Gets Thin, But How Do We Live?

Russian President Putin used the word war to refer to the conflict in Ukraine for the first time, diverging from his carefully constructed description of the Moscow invasion as a special military operation 10 months after it began.

Putin told reporters in Moscow that he was not trying to spin military conflict but trying to end it. We have been working for this and will continue to try.

Nikita Yuferev, a municipal lawmaker who fled Russia due to his antiwar stance, said on Thursday that he has asked the Russian authorities to prosecute Putin for spreading fake information about the army.

“There was no decree to end the special military operation, no war was declared,” Yuferev wrote on Twitter. Thousands of people have been condemned because of their comments about the war.

A US official told CNN their initial assessment was that Putin’s remark was not intentional and likely a slip of the tongue. When it comes to this situation, officials will be watching closely to see what the figures in the Kremlin have to say.

Thousands of people have been killed, entire villages have been wiped out and billions of dollars of infrastructure has been destroyed since Putin invaded Ukraine in February.

Putin has attempted to convince the world that democracy and human rights are fake values because, he argues, they have offered no protection against the reality of war and the projection of power. That’s why we, in turn, must demonstrate justice. We must be able to say yes, there was a period when the law didn’t work, but it was only temporary. We need to fix the problem and hold the Russians accountable.

Putin commented on Zelensky’s historic visit to Washington and the Ukrainian president spoke to Congress about US support for the war effort.

During his visit, US President Joe Biden unveiled a $1.8 billion package of assistance for Ukraine that includes a Patriot missile defense system – a longstanding request of Kyiv’s to counter Russian air attacks.

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Putin accused Zelensky of being unwilling to negotiate as he claimed that conflicts with armed conflicts end one way or another.

He said the Ukrainian leadership refused to conduct negotiations and that any party opposing us will sit down and negotiate.

Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a statement on Wednesday saying the Kremlin would invest in many areas of the military. The initiatives include increasing the size of the armed forces, accelerating weapons programs and deploying a new generation of hypersonic missiles to prepare Russia for what Putin called “inevitable clashes” with its adversaries.

I am very familiar with how much we have accomplished in ridding the system of corrupt legacies of Soviet rule that have lingered since our country gained its independence. I am aware of the amount of blood spilled in the square in order to break away from Russia.

I was angry during the first weeks of the war. Angry that Russians should decide that we can’t have a democratic future, and angry that they have the right to take away our freedom.

During this revolution, the democratic path thatUkraine has made many steps on was begun. Local communities were given more rights by the government. Parliament adopted anti-corruption legislation, making it difficult to hide misuses of power. Changes to our Constitution opened the way to judicial reform. We were on the right path and there are a lot of things that need to be done.

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Together with other organizations, we have recorded over 31,000 cases of war crimes and abuse of civilians in cities, towns and tiny villages across our country up to the end of 2022. The goal of collecting evidence is to hold the perpetrators to account. We are telling the human story of what happened, so that when people see it, they’ll know what happened.

Despite so much, I have found that we can still rely on people.

I saw this spirit during the protests in 2014; it was a new one. We believed in something better and we protested despite the police beatings and the killings. And it arrived.

It appears that this love extends to the vision of a country where human rights are respected, in a future Ukraine. We might not need a Center for Civil Liberties anymore. Perhaps even to a vision of the world where this spirit of shared humanity prevails.

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine a year ago it intensified its blockade of information to control the hearts and minds of its own citizens.

Draconian new censorship laws targeted any media still operating outside the controls of the Kremlin and most independent journalists left the country. Western news and social media websites were shut down by the Iron Curtain.

And as authorities rounded up thousands in a crackdown on anti-war protests, a culture of fear descended on Russian cities and towns that prevents many people from sharing their true thoughts on the war in public.

“My opinion on Ukraine has changed,” said Ekaterina, 37, who turns to popular Russian news program “60 Minutes” after getting home from work. The point of the war was the first thing that came to my mind. Why did they decide to start it? It makes life much harder for the people in Russia.

CNN does not use the names of people who were critical of the Kremlin. Public criticism of the war in Ukraine or statements that discredit Russia’s military can potentially mean a fine or a prison sentence.

For Natalya and many of her compatriots, the endless, personal grind of war casts Russian propaganda in a different light. The tide of public opinion against Putin creates an opening for those hoping to push it.

Gauging public opinion is notoriously difficult in a country where independent pollsters are targeted by the government, and many of the 146 million citizens are reluctant to publicly condemn President Vladimir Putin. The Levada Center states that Russians’ support dipped by only 4% from March to November last year.

Most Russians see on state media a “perverted picture of Russia battling the possible invasion of their own territory – they don’t see their compatriots dying,” said Kiryl Sukhotski, who oversees Russian-language content at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US Congress-funded media outlet that broadcasts in countries where information is controlled by state authorities.

Francis Scarr, a Russian media analyst at the British Broadcasting Union, said that a Russian lawmaker told his audience on state-owned Russia-1 that “if Kyiv needs to lie in ruins for our flag to fly” in the days leading up to Friday’s anniversary of war.

A pro-Russian former lawmaker said in a far-fetched statement that Moscow is under control and that everything is going to progress.

Such programming typically appeals to a select group of older, more conservative Russians who pine for the days of the Soviet Union – though its reach spans generations, and it has claimed some converts.

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The conflict has taken a toll on her. “My life has deteriorated a lot in this year. No one close to me has been called up. But I lost my job. And I see radical changes around me everywhere,” she said.

“I think you can trust them all only to an extent. The state channels sometimes reflect the truth, but on other occasions they say things just to calm people down,” 20-year-old Daniil said.

The Levada Center says that more than half of Russians rely on television for their news.

Everything I hear on the state channels is split in half. “I don’t trust anyone really.” said 55 year-old accountant, Tatyana. Leonid, a 58-year old engineer, said that one needed to analyze everything because certain things were omitting.

Several people whom CNN spoke with in Moscow this month relayed similar feelings, stressing that they engaged with state-controlled TV but treated it with skepticism. And there are differing views about Ukraine by many people.

Many Russians have developed concerns about the war in the center ground. But if the Kremlin cannot expect all-out support across its populace, sociologists say it can at least rely on apathy.

“One family doesn’t know of another family who hasn’t suffered a loss in Ukraine,” Lautman said. “Russians do support the conflict because they do have an imperialistic ambition. But now it is knocking on their door, and you’re starting to see a shift.”

“A lot of doubters don’t go very deep into the news … many of them don’t believe that Russian soldiers kill Ukrainians – they repeat this narrative they see on TV,” she said.

She is not alone. “The major attitude is not to watch (the news) closely, not to discuss it with colleagues or friends. Volk said that what can you do about it? “Whatever you say, whatever you want, the government will do what they want.”

Anti-war protests in Russia are rare and noteworthy due to the feeling of futility. The first reason people don’t want to protest is because it might be dangerous, and then the second is because they see it as futile.

The majority of the population disengages. “In general, those people try to distance themselves from what’s going on,” Savelyeva added. “They try to live their lives as though nothing is happening.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/europe/russia-propaganda-information-ukraine-anniversary-cmd-intl/index.html

The Russian Frontline Affairs: From Russian State Propaganda to the Internet… What Do They Tell Us? Why Do They Care? And How Do They Make Their Stand

“I do have an opinion about the special military operation … it remains the same to this day,” Anna told CNN in Moscow. I can’t say which side I support. I believe in truth and justice. She said that they should leave it like that.

“I have felt anxious ever since this began. A woman who asked to remain anonymous told CNN last month that it was affecting the availability of products and prices. There is not a lot of public information. People should be explained things. Everyone is listening to Soloviev,” she said, referring to prominent propagandist Vladimir Soloviev.

A film student said she hadn’t heard from her friend for two months after he was called up. It would be better if he said he was alive.

Uncensored scenes from the Ukrainian frontlines are put into the homes of Russian-speaking residents through the outlet, which is one of the most influential platforms.

RFE/RL told CNN that the Current Time network saw a two and a halffold increase in Facebook views and a three and a half fold increase in Vimeo views in the 10 months after the invasion. RFE/RL believed that a number of Russian cities were getting rid of anti-war signs by using QR codes to direct users to their website.

Independent outlets face challenges reaching beyond internet natives, who tend to be younger and living in cities, and penetrating the media diet of older, poorer and rural Russians who are more supportive of the war.

“We need to get to the wider audience in Russia,” Sukhotski said. “We see a lot of people indoctrinated by Russian state propaganda … it will be an uphill battle but this is where we shape our strategy.”

Outlets like RFE/RL have openings across the digital landscape, in spite of Russia’s move to ban Twitter, Facebook and other Western platforms last year.

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OVD-Info says that there are more than 450 defendants facing criminal charges for antiwar activity in Russia. They are charged with disseminating false information, but others are charged with promoting and inciting terrorism.

All of our staff are aware they cannot go back to Russia, according to Sukhotski. “They still have families there. They still have ailing parents there. Some people weren’t able to go to their parents’ funerals in the past year.

About a quarter of Russians use VPN services to access blocked sites, according to a Levada Center poll carried out two months after Russia’s invasion.

Searches for such services on Google spiked to record levels in Russia following the invasion, and have remained at their highest rates in over a decade ever since, the search engine’s tracking data shows.

The Kremlin believes that if they don’t haveYouTube, they will not be able to control the flow of information to younger people

And that allows censored organizations a way in. I watch it on-line. One Moscow resident who is against the war told CNN that he watches everything there. “These federal channels I never watch,” she said. I do not believe a word they say. They lie all the time! You’ve just got to switch on your logic, compare some information and you will see that it’s all a lie.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/europe/russia-propaganda-information-ukraine-anniversary-cmd-intl/index.html

The Redan PMC: a flash mob in Ukraine after the Vuhledar debacle – and why Putin should have dismissed Muradov

Telegram has risen in popularity since the war began, becoming a public square for military writers to analyze on the battlefield.

The analysis was similar to the line of the Kremlin. But “starting around September, when Ukraine launched their successful counter-offensives, everything started falling apart,” said Olga Lautman, a US-based Senior Fellow at CEPA who studies the Kremlin’s internal affairs and propaganda tactics. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

In the last few months, a number of high net worth individuals have lost faith in the armed forces after they lambasted their military tactics and publicly lost their trust.

The latest episode to expose those fissures was caused by the debacle in Vuhledar that saw Russian tanks stray wildly into bombs. The former Defense Minister of the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Girkin, sometimes known by his nom de guerre Igor Strelkov – now a a strident critic of the campaign – said Russian troops “were shot like turkeys at a shooting range.” He called the Russians morons in another post. Several Russian commentators called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces.

The impact of those fractures remains unclear. Putin can rely on someone who is generally supportive of the conflict or too tired to proclaim his opposition.

A girl aged 15 and a boy 14 years old, both from Russia, created a Telegram channel in the Ukrainian capital that they used to organize conflict meetings.

These gangs have become known as “Redan PMC,” combining the name of a Japanese anime character with the acronym for Private Military Company, made infamous by the Wagner mercenary group.

In Kharkiv alone, law enforcement officers identified 245 participants in what it called a flash mob launched by the Russian Federation. There were 215 of them. Volodymyr Tymoshko, the city police chief said the Russian security services – the FSB – had “gathered all these people through manipulation and deception, and they should have started a fight so the Russian TV could use it. Gas canisters, knives, brass knuckles were found in the possession of many (participants).”

In the last week, Redan gangs have also begun appearing on the streets of several Ukrainian cities – giving more work to an already overstretched police force. A 16-year-old was arrested in Dnipro while trying to flee the group of teens gathered in the capital.

The outline of a spider with the number four is what Redan fans wear. Redan is the name of a criminal group in the Japanese television series “Hunter x Hunter.” Social media videos and images show that Redan members in Russia also favor black hoodies and checked pants.

Redan’s emergence has even got the Kremlin talking. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday it was important to stop “illegal actions. Its a pseudo-subculture that goes with a minus sign and does nothing good for our youth.

The police said they had blocked 18 Telegram channels and groups, which they said were created to undermine the domestic situation in Ukraine and involve minor illegal activities.

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They added that “about 30 youth gatherings took place in different regions of the country over the course of two days. There were law enforcement officers that responded to the conflicts.

In the video recorded by the police, a teenager talks about being the founder of a group with 2,500 members. Redan is a popular topic on social media and I wanted to make money by posting advertising posts.

Vasyl Bohdan, head of the Juvenile Prevention Department of the National Police, said a total of more than 700 people had been summoned to police stations, most of them minors. The force was appealing to parents to be aware of who their children communicate with.

“I understand if a person refuses to speak out for his safety, because the consequences are serious not only for the person, but for the whole family, for all their loved ones,” she told journalists before a recent court hearing. “Everything that I’m going through right now is terrible.”

This week, the Russian government added her to the federal wanted list, and a court ruled that she be arrested in absentia, according to Russian news media.

The organization that tracks political repression says that almost 6,000 people have been accused of defaming the Russian Army since the invasion. Of those, more than 2,000 cases are related to comments posted on social media, the group said.

The first charge in Russia is a form of administrative offense that can lead to a fine or prison time. A repeat offense carries criminal liability and a potential sentence of 10 years, which can include a social media post from years ago.

On the purchase of tickets for a train ride in Ms. Krivtsova’s home town, Westerlund, Germany

Ms. Krivtsova said she realized that her chances of being exonerated were greatly diminished after train tickets were purchased in her name. She denied buying the tickets and said she believed the security services had done so to imply that she would attempt an escape. There weren’t any evidence that she had bought them.