This happened a few weeks ago but I just discovered the footage today. Meet Elena Osipova, a survivor of the Leningrad Siege who’s protested against Russia’s wars in Ukraine and Syria for several years already, often being arrested and harassed by crowds.
Here she is again in May 2019, nearly provoking a lynch mob in St. Petersburg by sitting outside with anti-war signs.
A brave and committed woman who knows what hardship and war are.
On the supposed reappearance of Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, @MoscowTimes points out that today’s teeny tiny footage seems to match what we saw on March 11, his last sighting. Background, necktie, and clothes. 🤷♂️ t.me/TMT_ru/3517
I don’t vouch for this theory, but it is a fact that the Kremlin in the past has presented footage that wasn’t recorded when it appeared to be.
There’s also this curious bit at the start of the footage.
With this tweet, I think I’ve managed to trigger more people than with anything else I’ve ever written on this network. Russian chauvinists, anti-American edgelords, anti-consumerists, and everything else, in between and side to side.
A lot of the mockery assumes that I personally think these brands are essential components of freedom. No, except for a free press. But the rest are important in the Russian context for specific reasons.
Disney matters least on my (certainly incomplete) list. I see it as a stand-in for Russia’s inclusion in Western mass culture. Disney partnered with Russian film companies to make movies like the immensely popular Poslyedniy Bogatyr. (Earned $30 mil on a budget of $8 mil.)
Others maybe noted, but the Komsomolskaya Pravda text claiming 9,861 dead Russian soldiers originally had 2 closing paragraphs that disappeared in the “restored” version about (1) Russian naval captain Andrey Paliy’s death, and (2) two “merc” camps destroyed outside Zhytomyr.
The latest chilling development in Russia: “opposition” political party Just Russia launches a project to collect denunciations (Stalinist style) against fellow citizens suspected of anti-govt activities. The website is a masterpiece of Orwellian bullshit. sprosim.srzapravdu.org
The party urges people to appeal to Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee, with “questions” like this: “Why were our foreign exchange reserves and the minds of some state TV employees under the West’s power?” “Who’s raising the price of sugar?”
“The time has come to build the state’s personnel policy on a wave of patriotism. This isn’t about purges [LOL]; it’s about love for the country.”
Kamran Manafly, a 28-yr-old geography teacher in Moscow, rejected new guidelines on lecturing to his students about the invasion of Ukraine. Then he wrote on Instagram, “I don’t want to be a mirror for state propaganda.” His school promptly fired him. Now he’s fled the country.
He told Meduza that the school even called the police on him, when he came to the office the day after his dismissal to collect his things and say goodbye to his students. Later, a security guard even attacked him. All but one of his former colleagues ignored the beating.
The school’s administrators then distributed photos showing Manafly’s vacation in the USA and Europe, claiming that he’s a foreign agent, and they pressured parents to delete posts on social media in his support, threatening actions by children’s services.