The Real Russia. Today. Muscovites remember Great Terror victims' names, Novaya Gazeta gets more threatening ‘gifts,’ and a Moscow regional mayor resigns under suspicious circumstances

Monday, October 29, 2018

This day in history. On October 29, 1976, the USSR commissioned the first part of its missile early-warning system for combat duty, with radars in Olenegorsk, Skrunda, Balkhash, and Mishelevka. The second part went operational in January 1979.

• In an annual commemoration, Muscovites remember the names of Great Terror victims
• Activist who protested Russian prison violence will reportedly face felony charges for ‘inciting hatred’ against prison officials
• Federation Council speaker says there's no more anti-Semitism or xenophobia in Russia
• The latest threatening gift is delivered to Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta: nine caged sheep
• As mayor of a town outside Moscow, Pyotr Lazarev granted permits to protesters. Now he's resigned amid rumors that it might spare him criminal charges.
• Columnist Oleg Kashin thinks Putin's religious piety makes nuclear war more likely
• A new law in Latvia is set to ban school instruction in Russian
• One of Sputnik's U.S. partners is fighting against FARA registration
• A pioneer conservationist dies tragically in Bryansk 
• Two Russian journalists storm the ‘Ask Me Anything’ subreddit

Returning the Names 💐

On October 29, Moscow holds its annual “Returning the Names” commemoration at the Solovetsky Stone in Lubyanka Square, across from what used to be the KGB's headquarters. The monument itself is made up of a large stone from the Solovetsky Islands, from the Solovki Gulag prison camp. Throughout the day, people come to remember and read aloud the names of victims in the Soviet Great Terror.

A protected class 👮

A Russian activist will face felony charges for staging a protest last week against Russia’s “repressive penitentiary system.” On October 25, Olga Shalina infiltrated a “security provision” convention in Moscow, where she scaled a police van prototype and scattered leaflets, before slashing open her left arm and bleeding profusely. Afterwards, she was taken to the hospital.

According to fellow activist Maria Alekhina (of Pussy Riot fame), Shalina will be discharged on October 29 and summoned for questioning a day later. She will apparently face criminal charges for inciting hatred against “penitentiary system employees,” which prosecutors say is a protected “social group.”

A long-time member of Eduard Limonov’s “Other Russia” activist movement, Olga Shalina previously spent three years in jail, after evading the authorities for five years following an attack on Limonov at a Moscow courthouse in 2006 by armed members of two pro-Kremlin youth groups (Limonov’s crew was later blamed for the violence).

The end of anti-Semitism ✡️

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko declared on Monday that there is no anti-Semitism or xenophobia in Russia today, crediting the government’s crackdown on extremism and hate speech. Speaking at a conference in Moscow dedicated to countering anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism, Matviyenko warned that anti-Semitism has “activated” in Europe and other countries “that position themselves as a model for civilization, democracy, respect for human rights, and freedom.”

At the same conference, Russian Jewish Congress President Yuri Kanner announced that anti-Semitism is at an all-time low in Eastern Europe today. “This is especially clear against the background of the tragic events that occurred on Saturday at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in the United States,” Kanner said.

On Saturday, October 27, a gunman killed 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest attack ever on Jews in the United States. Suspect Robert Bowers targeted Jews online and made anti-Semitic comments during the shooting. Now in police custody, he faces 29 federal charges, including crimes punishable by death.

He even mucks about with those who cannot bleat 🐑

Someone continues to mess with Novaya Gazeta. On October 17, a funeral wreath was delivered to the independent newspaper’s office with a note mentioning one of its reporters that read, “Denis Korotkov is a traitor to the Motherland.” A day later, somebody sent a basket containing a severed sheep's head and a sign that said, “To Novaya Gazeta’s chief editor. Greetings to you and Korotkov!”

On October 29, the latest “gift” appeared: three cages chained together, each holding three sheep, all dressed in vests labeled: PRESS: Novaya Gazeta.” Deposited outside the newspaper’s office, the building’s security officers discovered the animals and promptly called the police.

Denis Korotkov is known for his reports about Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria. He’s also written about vulnerabilities in the Defense Ministry's website, which he exploited to gain access to the personal data of Roman Filippov, a Russian pilot killed in action in Syria. All these reports appeared on the news website Fontanka, where Korotkov worked until this summer. He later joined the staff at Novaya Gazeta.

On October 22, Novaya Gazeta published a new article by Korotkov claiming that people associated with the Putin-connected catering industry oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin are responsible for attacking opposition activists and bloggers, as well as carrying out several murders and poisonings in different countries, including in Syria.

Now you see him, now you don't 🚯

Volokolamsk Mayor Pyotr Lazarev has resigned, officially for “health reasons.” Tatiana Mozol, the city’s first deputy head, will take over his duties, according to the news agency TASS. Asked by Meduza if he resigned by choice or under pressure, Lazarev refused to comment. Regarding his health, the outgoing mayor said his condition started to decline during local protests against the “Yadrovo” landfill, “when I was trying to fix something,” Lazarev told Meduza.

A source told Meduza that Lazarev had to resign because of two pending criminal investigations. Interior Ministry officials from the Moscow regional office are allegedly investigating Lazarev for abusing his authority as mayor. On October 26, he reported to police for questioning in connection with these charges.

“It's a long story”

Pyotr Lazarev confirmed to Meduza that he reported for questioning on October 26, but he says he wasn’t interrogated as a suspect. “There are no criminal cases being investigated against me, but yes I was questioned as a witness. I don’t have the time or inclination to tell you more about that case; it’s a long story,” Lazarev said, refusing to comment when asked if he was threatened with being named as a suspect, if he didn’t resign from office. Police officers in the Interior Ministry’s Moscow regional office did not respond promptly to Meduza's questions about the case.

According to Meduza’s source, the criminal investigations are the work of Andrey Vikharev, who served as the acting head of the Volokolamsk District from March until October. Vikharev allegedly promised Lazarev that “everything would end” if he submitted his resignation. On October 25, members of the Volokolamsk district council elected a new district head: Mikhail Sylka, the Moscow regional government’s former deputy ecology minister. Sylka denied rumors that the authorities pressured Lazarev to step down. “Let’s look at the official documents, and it’s written there: resigned of his own volition,” Sylka told Meduza. “And if there are criminal investigations, is a mayor absolved of criminal responsibility just because he leaves office? You commit a crime, leave office, and then you’re forgiven? That doesn’t happen.” Andrey Vikharev was unavailable for comment.

A long time coming

Police previously investigated Lazarev for fraud back in April 2018, and even searched his home. At the time, the mayor said he’d been threatened by “high-ranking regional officials” who demanded that he stop granting demonstration permits to local activists protesting against the “Yadrovo” landfill.

The West's maniacal plans 🙈

Former Russian Central Elections Commissioner Nikolai Ryabov said at a conference on October 25 that “extremely trying times” await the country, as Western nations try to meddle in Russian politics. The West’s strategic goal, Ryabov said, is the total dissolution of the Russian Federation, while the tactical objective in the U.S. and Western Europe remains the ouster of President Vladimir Putin.

Ryabov made his remarks in Moscow at a conference honoring the Central Election Commission’s 25th anniversary.

Serving from September 1993 until November 1996, Ryabov was the agency’s first commissioner. He also oversaw Boris Yeltsin’s controversial re-election in July 1996. Afterwards, Ryabov served as Russia’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, Azerbaijan, and Moldova.

Read it elsewhere 📰

🔥 Kashin thinks Putin's ideas about heaven bring us closer to hell on Earth

In an op-ed for Republic, columnist Oleg Kashin argues that the religious piety popularized by Vladimir Putin has replaced the USSR’s “nuclear pacifism.” Kashin bases this observation on the president’s recent joke about Russians “going to heaven” if it’s destroyed in a nuclear attack. According to Kashin, it doesn’t matter if Putin actually believes in heaven; what matters is that his rhetoric reflects the establishment’s current mentality about war. In other words, military officers who could be forced to make snap decisions in the early stages of a potential nuclear conflict are now more likely than ever to conceive of and accept nuclear annihilation, he says.

Kashin suggests that the USSR's objections to nuclear war were founded on atheism (“no heaven awaits”) and the fact that the Soviet Union spent the beginning of the nuclear era without atomic bombs of its own. The Putin's regime's supposed readiness for war is part of a larger militarization of society that makes Russia vulnerable to another Great Terror, Kashin says, acknowledging that hyperbolic remarks about a “return of 1937” are now boilerplate in Russian liberal politics. Nevertheless, attitudes have changed since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and armed meddling in eastern Europe, and Donald Trump is not to blame, Kashin says.

• Why is Kashin writing about the chances of a nuclear war? Read about Putin's recent “joke” about this prospect, and learn more about the collapse of arms control agreements from the Cold War.

🏫 Latvia's language police

In a special report from Riga, NPR correspondent Lucian Kim talks to locals, ethnic Russian activists, and Latvian nationalists about a controversial new language law that will ban schooling in Russian, unless the country’s courts toss it out. Kim’s article features quotes from Latvians fighting for their cultural identity against the Russian behemoth to the east, and comments from Russian speakers who say their rights are being trampled. For more about Moscow’s soft power and the divisive effects of this supposedly unifying law, read the report here at NPR.

📻 America's radio police

RM Broadcasting, a one-man operation based in Florida that sells airtime on an AM radio station in the D.C. area to Sputnik, is suing the U.S. Justice Department to avoid registering as a foreign agent. The lawsuit “illustrates how some of the ambiguities in the law, and DOJ’s decades-long kid-gloves approach to FARA enforcement, have created significant uncertainty both about congressional intent and the types of cases in which the government will actively seek FARA compliance,” writes Lachlan Markay in The Daily Beast. Read the story here and read the complaint for declaratory judgment here.

🐎 A conservationist's tragic passing

Pioneer conservationist Laura Williams died in a horse-riding accident in Russia’s Bryansk region on Sunday, October 28. “The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization that focuses on wilderness preservation. Williams, a Colorado-native who moved to Moscow in 1993, helped establish the NGO's Russian branch in the 1990s and launched a WWF office in Kamchatka in 2006,” reports The Moscow Times. Read the story here.

💻 The Russians take over Reddit's AMAs

Do you love Q&A? Are you fond of interviews modeled on an “ask me anything” premise? If so, you’ll perhaps enjoy perusing two recent Reddit “AMA”s: one with Meduza special correspondent Konstantin Benyumov and another with Coda Story editor Alexey Kovalev. Topics covered include Russian journalism in exile, Kremlin trolls, zombies, election meddling, and “other fun stuff.”

• Read Benyumov’s AMA
• Read Kovalev’s AMA