The Real Russia. Today. Pension controversies abound, Russia postpones the next highway toll battle, and Oleg Navalny goes free!

Friday, June 29, 2018

This day in history. On June 29, 2010, the Russian Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to ban the Slavic Union, a Russian Neo-Nazi movement

• Pension-related news! An acting governor wants his constituents spared, “Open Russia” activists flash some skin (again), United Russia tries to get its regional officials on message, and trolls spread a story misrepresenting anti-Kremlin oppositionists' positions on pension reform
• Russia puts off higher highway tolls for another year
• Teachers at the Chelyabinsk boarding school accused of raping children are challenging the school's closure
• Moscow cancels its Day of the Dead parade at Red Square
• Russia's Telegram block has had little effect on the number of users in Russia
• Oleg Navalny is free!
• Meduza explains why this year's FIFA World Cup may be the best ever

Pension attention

💸 Spare an exception?

Magadan Acting Governor Sergey Nosov says he will urge the government not to raise the retirement age for people living in his region, where locals enjoy early retirement privileges as “residents of the Far North.”

Nosov is a member of the Supreme Council of the country’s ruling political party, United Russia, which has forbidden its members from criticizing the pension reform proposal because it was drafted by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who heads the party.

Magadan is already getting some perks. Starting next year, the reforms would take effect gradually, raising the retirement age for men from 60 to 65 by 2028 and from 55 to 63 for women by 2034. The reforms would start as soon as next year. The proposal includes many exceptions, however. For example, the retirement age in Russia’s Far North (Magadan, Yakutia, Chukotka, Tuva, Kamchatka, and other areas) would jump from 55 to 60 for men and from 50 to 58 for women. The same applies to indigenous peoples in the north and the families of killed cosmonauts and soldiers.

✊ Civies without skivvies

Activists from the “Open Russia” movement have resorted to picketing in the nude, after local officials in Rostov-on-Don refused to issue a permit to protest a federal initiative to raise the country’s retirement age and the value added tax. On Facebook, Open Russia activist Anastiasia Shevchenko shared photos of herself and fellow activist Maria Krivenko, standing apparently naked in the street, holding a sign reading, “They’ve robbed us down to our undies.” “Join our flashmob and share your photos online with similar posters and the hashtag #ТрусЫПротеста [Undies Protest],” Shevchenko wrote.

Not the first flash of skin. This isn’t the first time Open Russia has tried to use the female form to drum up publicity for its efforts. Early last year, when the movement was advertising anti-Putin protests on April 29, 2017, Open Russia’s Twitter account posted a photograph of a buxom young woman with promotion stickers taped across her nipples. (Then project coordinator Maria Baronova later claimed to have stolen the idea from a Navalny supporter.)

On June 14, on Day One of the FIFA World Cup, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced massive changes coming to Russia’s pension system. The same day, Medvedev also announced that Russia will raise the Value Added Tax from 18 percent to 20 percent, though existing VAT benefits on foods, children’s goods, and medical supplies will remain untouched, to ensure that “the burden doesn’t fall on [ordinary] people,” the prime minister said.

✉ Crafting United Russia's message

United Russia recently held a closed meeting with representatives from its regional offices to discuss the proposed raising of the country’s retirement age. Party officials reportedly told the group that “they need to accept the reforms and they have to discuss how to limit the blowback and explain them to people, no matter how unpleasant it is.” People who attended the meeting told the newspaper Vedomosti that the audience was not overwhelmingly receptive to this advice. Party officials are apparently being told to defend the pension reforms as a way to raise retirement benefits.

Boris Kolesnikov, United Russia’s secretary in Sevastopol, told the newspaper Kommersant that the discuss at the last closed meeting was “heated” and full of “tough questions,” but he says the group ultimately agreed that “reforms must be supported.”

Small protests against the government’s push to raise Russia’s retirement age are planned or have already taken place in dozens of cities across the country.

😈 Meet the new trolls, same as the old trolls

Somebody up to no good apparently planted a hit piece at the online publication TJournal, twisting and misrepresenting quotes from various opposition activists (especially Alexey Navalny) who supposedly supported raising Russia’s retirement age before the federal government recently proposed pension reforms. The text's author and two dozen of the comments were posted from the same St. Petersburg IP address — all created on the same day, from an address at a small Internet provider called Chaika Telekom.

A whole coterie of public figures (like Ilias Merkuri and Dmitry Steshin) and media outlets (like Vyzglyad and Ridus) infamous for attacking the anti-Kremlin opposition helped promote the planted story. Chaika Telekom's St. Petersburg office was previously acquired by Felix Dlin and restructured as a foreign real estate seller.

Dlin reportedly has ties to one of Russia's richest businessmen: Mikhail Gutseriev. The two own a company called “Arsenal” that makes missile launchers for the Russian Navy. Earlier this year, Gutseriev reportedly sold his stake in Arsenal to avoid American sanctions. This is Dlin's first known flirtation with St. Petersburg “troll factories,” but Russia's troll factory king, Evgeny Prigozhin, is a major defense contractor.

One battle at a time 🚛

It seems the federal government would rather not deal with protesting truckers and demonstrating pensioners all in the same year. On Friday, Prime Minister Medvedev signed a government order postponing fee hikes to the “Platon” highway toll system by 12 months. Officials originally planned to raise the tolls last year from 1.9 rubles per kilometer (almost five cents per mile) to 3.06 rubles per kilometer (almost eight cents per mile).

The “Platon” system was introduced in November 2015, sparking major protests by freight truckers across the country. Truckers have also demonstrated against the government’s plans to raise the tolls.

Trying to save a “troubled” boarding school 🎒

Staff at the Lazurnensky Boarding School in Chelyabinsk have appealed to the district attorney’s office, challenging the decision to close down their school, despite allegations by the children’s legal guardians that teachers raped several students. Police are still investigating those claims, but the teachers named by parents are only witnesses in two criminal cases. After being reinstated at work, the staff also filed defamation charges against the guardians who accused them of rape. The official reason for shutting down the school, effective September 1, is its defective supply of hot water.

Sorry, Coco 💀

Without any explanation, Moscow city officials have canceled a Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) parade scheduled to take place on June 29 in Red Square. The head of the “Communists of Russia” party (not to be confused with the Russian Communist Party) asked the city to call off the event, arguing that it might lead to clashes between Russians and visiting Mexican soccer fans, insofar as Red Square is a “sacred place” for Russian patriots.

There has been a lot of buzz on Russian social media about the idea of celebrating Día de Muertos at Red Square, not least because it is the resting grounds of a still very mummified Vladimir Lenin.

The “blocking” of Telegram 🤳

The number of Telegram users in Russia was virtually unchanged after a month of being “blocked” by the federal censor, according to a new analytical report by the company Mediascope, falling from 3.72 million in April to 3.67 million in May. Ahead of the government’s crackdown, Telegram’s Russian audience expanded rapidly, growing 70 percent between October and April. In late May, Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov claimed that the number of Telegram users in Russia and the number of advertisements published on the messenger had fallen by 25 percent.

When asked about the Telegram situation during his live call-in show in early June, Vladimir Putin said Russian law enforcement should ensure public safety “without limiting Internet freedom.”

Finally free and looking good 😎

Oleg Navalny, sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in the “Yves Rocher” case, went free on the morning of June 29 from a penitentiary in the Oryol region.

A grand bargain? 🤝

Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova says Kyiv is ready to trade 23 Russian prisoners for Moscow’s Ukrainian prisoners. Denisova hasn’t named the inmates, but she says they’ve been convicted of various crimes. Russia and Ukraine have been working on a prisoner exchange since early June, when presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko discussed the idea in a phone call.

Imprisoned in Siberia, the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 47 days, demanding the release of all Russia’s Ukrainian political prisoners.

Meanwhile, between Washington and Moscow... 😅

On Friday, Russia announced that it’s filed a claim with the WTO against U.S. tariffs on aluminium and steel imports. In March, Donald Trump imposed new tariffs, levying 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminium. Trump says these measures are justified by national security concerns and therefore outside the WTO’s remit. Read the story at Reuters.

A search warrant application unsealed on Wednesday revealed closer links than previously known between President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, including a $10-million loan. Read the story at Reuters.

'Sup, Big Brosky 🔎

Signed on June 26, 2018, and published two days later, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has issued a government order requiring Internet companies to start storing a vast array of user data. The requirements, established as part of Russia’s “anti-terrorism” Yarovaya law, apply to users’ text-based, audio, and visual correspondence dating back six months. Internet companies must make these archives available to Russian law enforcement, if requested. The requirements take effect on July 1.

Loving this year's World Cup ⚽

More than half the games in the 2018 FIFA World Cup have already been played, and this year’s tournament is shaping up to be one of the best (maybe the best) in history. The excitement this summer isn’t that the World Cup is happening in Russia, but that it’s been a thrilling sporting event that makes for a captivating show.

• Read Meduza’s report: “Russia's 2018 FIFA World Cup may be the best one yet, and here's the proof”