The Real Russia. Today. Taking the initiative on QR-code vaccine passports

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

• In limbo in Belarus, migrants cling to hopes that EU countries will open their borders
• International: CIT researchers confirm Russian troop buildup but not ‘unprecedented’ reservist mobilization, and U.S. adds Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology to military end-user list
• Opinion: Fyodor Lukyanov advocates ‘Finlandization’ of Ukraine
• Corruption: Moscow police chief arrested for smuggling Indians into U.S. through Mexico, and Agentstvo investigative report says Gazprom and other state corporations foot bill for most Russian Premier League soccer teams
• While Russia’s State Duma and Cabinet drag their feet over vaccine passport prerequisites, regional authorities test drive similar measures
• The pandemic: Sputnik M to roll out for teens, Instagram slaps a fake-news warning on a Russian actress, and an open letter from hospitals to Russia’s vaccine-mandate opponents
• Law and order: Navalny files new lawsuit from prison, another former Navalny activist flees Russia, Furgal gets new charges, and blogger Kemerovo is fined for calling cops ‘bums’
• Mass media: Readovka slams iStories and Novaya Gazeta for investigation into reporting on migrants and crime

International

🛂 Refugees in Belarus: ‘I didn’t have a life in Iraq’ (6-min read)

The migration crisis on the border of Belarus and the European Union has been going on for months. Thousands of asylum seekers from Middle Eastern and African countries remain stranded in the Eastern European country. Some of them have made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the border into the EU. Seeing no other way out, many have already given up hope and decided to return to their home countries. Reporting from Minsk, Meduza asks migrants stuck in limbo what made them leave their homelands, why they want to get to the European Union, and what they plan to do next.

More international news

• 🛡️ Researchers at the Conflict Intelligence Team confirm intel assessments that Russian troops could be ready for wider Ukraine invasion by early 2022 (But CIT says the evidence doesn’t support Bloomberg’s recent report about an “unprecedented” mobilization of reservists, which probably refers to Russia’s “Battle Army Reserve” program — a new territorial defense structure, not a reinforcement of existing troops. Russia’s likelier occupying force in Ukraine would be military police and National Guard troops, says CIT, but these units haven’t yet demonstrated large-scale movements.)
• 🛑 U.S. Commerce Department adds Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology to military end-user list (the designation identifies the institute as “engaging in activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” and restricts its access to certain U.S. goods and technologies)
• 🌐 Opinion: Russia in Global Affairs editor-in-chief Fyodor Lukyanov advocates ‘Finlandization’ of Ukraine (He says Russia will need new “red lines” to force a revision of Europe’s peculiar post-Soviet principle “that countries can choose their alliances as though it is nobody else’s business.” Moscow’s actions today are intended to jolt the West from its 1990s mindset. Meanwhile, NATO’s hypothetical commitments to Ukraine could embolden Kyiv by creating enough “gray area” to prompt a repeat of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.)

Corruption

• 👮 Local police chief outside Moscow arrested on suspicion of smuggling Indian undocumented immigrants into U.S. through Mexico (detectives raided Karen Sevikyan’s home in September 2019 when he was named as a witness in the investigation into a local businessman’s murder)
• ⚽ New investigation by Agentstvo shows that 13 of Russian Premier League’s 16 soccer teams rely on laundered public money (The report focuses on Football Club Sochi, which Boris Rotenberg owns through proxies, though most of the team’s budget actually comes through a series of shell companies from the state energy giant Gazprom. Because Gazprom already openly sponsors FC Zenit, moreover, this financing scheme is grounds for suspension from European competition.)

The pandemic

🛂 Vaccine passports: ‘Without waiting for federal orders’ (6-min read)

When the Russian Cabinet put forward draft legislation on introducing QR-code vaccine passport prerequisites at the federal level, many expected the State Duma to push the bills through swiftly. Instead, a decision was made to shunt the legislation to the regions for feedback, ahead of parliamentary committees reviewing the documents in mid-December. Russia’s Udmurt Republic, Primorsky Krai, and Ryazan Region have already announced their support for the bills, which would require QR codes for access to many public places and certain modes of transportation. However, the draft legislation isn’t scheduled to go to the floor of the State Duma in December. As Meduza previously reported, the Cabinet and the Kremlin have yet to decide on the fate of the bills. In the meantime, the vast majority of Russia’s regions are already test driving their own versions of the proposed QR-code system. 

More pandemic news

• 💉 Russia registers ‘Sputnik M’ coronavirus vaccine for adolescents aged 12–17 (it will be available to teens older than 15 with or without parental consent)
• 🛑 Instagram is now warning users against subscribing to Russian actress Maria Shukshina (she has repeatedly shared wild conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines and criticized campaigns to inoculate the general public against the disease, though she does not self-identify as an “anti-vaxxer”)
• 🙏 Doctors at Russia’s 11 biggest hospitals pen open letter inviting leading ‘vaccine opponents’ to visit coronavirus red zones (The text is addressed to several politicians and prominent cultural figures, none of whom accepted the invitation. The “opponents” all say they oppose vaccine mandates, not vaccination itself.)

Law and order

• ⚖️ Alexey Navalny files lawsuit against prison for registering him as ‘extremist’ (This is the fourth claim he’s filed since imprisonment. Navalny has used lawsuits to protest against indignities major and minor, like being classified as a flight risk and losing access to certain reading materials, and presumably as a means of keeping his name in the news.)
• 🛫 Former head of Navalny’s St. Petersburg headquarters flees Russia fearing persecution (Irina Fatyanova left about a week ago, after the arrest of Liliya Chanysheva, Navalny’s former coordinator in Ufa)
• ⚖️ Jailed ex-Governor Sergey Furgal officially indicted on new charges including seven counts of fraud (Add “organizing a criminal community” and “large-scale fraud” to a list that already included organizing multiple killings. Furgal’s arrest in July 2020 prompted mass protests in Khabarovsk, where many residents believe the case is a politicized excuse for federal overreach.)
• ⚖️ Blogger in Kemerovo fined 50,000 rubles ($665) for calling police officers ‘bums’ (Mikhail Alferov’s outburst came after he was accused of pepper spraying a debt collector in the face. Another court recently banned him from further blogging for the next 2.5 years for supposedly “rehabilitating Nazism” by criticizing the commercialization of Victory Day celebrations.)

Mass media

• ⚔️ Editors at Readovka denounce joint report by iStories and Novaya Gazeta that lumps the outlet in with pro-Kremlin news organizations (Readovka says the report is essentially a “public denunciation” that could even trigger felony prosecution, pointing out that Readovka has already faced police pressure and persecution. Editors also accuse the two liberal publications of attacking Readovka for ideological reasons and repurposing the logic the Interior Ministry itself uses to dismiss and conceal Russia’s supposed problems with some ethnic groups.)