This was Russia today, Tuesday, October 8, 2024 Russia blocks Discord, a human rights activist slashes her wrists, and Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova faces criminal charges in Ukraine
Howdy, readers! Today, Putin hosted a Commonwealth of Independent States council meeting at the Kremlin. The leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were in attendance. Tomorrow, Putin will hold a video conference with his government cabinet to discuss Russia’s healthcare infrastructure, featuring a report from Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.
Today’s newsletter is 1,633 words — an eight-minute read.
Subscribe here to receive this daily newsletter directly. You know, in your inbox or whatever.
Today’s main story: New Russian law lets criminal suspects join the army at any stage of their trial — and leaves their victims living in fear
Putin enacted a landmark decision last week by signing two laws allowing accused criminals to enlist with the Russian military at any trial stage. The legislation allows defendants to trade armed service for possible prison time and criminal liability, “filling a gap” after previous laws extended this option to suspects and convicts.
The final step in a monumental change, not a minor adjustment: “Now, every court sentence is essentially make-believe, and no investigations can be considered real.”
Something to consider: Providing criminal immunity to violent offenders is fraught with social consequences and tramples victims’ rights.
2. Russian teenager in prison for anti-Putin flyers says cellmate brutally beat him
16-year-old Arseny Turbin is serving five years in a juvenile detention facility on terrorism charges. In a recent letter to his mother, he said he’s being subjected to physical and psychological abuse from fellow cellmates.
Turbin’s conviction: He was only 15 when a court found him guilty of distributing leaflets on behalf of the far-right Free Russia Legion — a pro-Ukraine unit made up of Russian nationals. He denies prosecutors’ claim that he actually joined the paramilitary group and is currently in pretrial detention awaiting appeal.
“Mom, I’m probably going to die soon,” Turbin said in his letter. Irina Turbina shared the note with Eva Merkacheva, a Presidential Human Rights Council member, and asked her to intervene on behalf of her son.
We got The Beet. Don’t miss Meduza’s weekly newsletter (separate from the one you’re reading here)!
3. Meanwhile in Russia
💰 A fundraiser for political prisoners in Russia collected more than 378,000 euros ($414,580) this summer. Organizers used these donations to help more than 100 prisoners with costs related to food, medicine, legal defense, and travel for prison visits. The project’s fundraising efforts are ongoing. (You Are Not Alone)
📺 YouTube has started more aggressively blocking traffic when Russian streaming platforms Rutube and VK Video try to access the network’s content to copy it to their services. YouTube’s response is likely part of its broader effort to combat third-party automated video scraping. (Kommersant)
👾 A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack targeted Roskomnadzor’s online resources after the agency’s announcement that it blocked Discord. Many outage reports posted at Downdetector.su included the hashtag “#FreeDiscord.” (Interfax)
⚖️ Human rights activist Olga Suvorova slashed her wrists in a Krasnoyarsk courtroom on Tuesday after she was convicted of filing a supposedly false report against a cop she says attacked her last year at a police station while she was trying to advocate for a fraud victim. Paramedics removed Olga Suvorova from the courthouse, and her condition is unknown at the time of this writing.
- Police arrested Suvorova after she attended a nomination convention in Moscow for Ekaterina Duntsova, the anti-war presidential candidate who was not allowed on Russia’s ballot. (Myagkaya Sila, Telegram)
🚫 The popular communications platform Discord is now officially blocked in Russia. Federal censor Roskomnadzor claimed on Tuesday that the network has failed to comply with Russian laws against recruiting “terrorists and extremists,” selling illegal drugs, and distributing “illegal information.” Internet users in Russia recently reported multiple disruptions in Discord access. (TASS)
- On September 30, a Moscow court fined Discord 3.5 million rubles for failing to comply with Russian laws on social media administration. (Moscow City Courts of General Jurisdiction, Telegram)
👮 The crackdown on corruption in Russia’s military has led to new felony charges against two more senior officials responsible for the Defense Ministry’s Patriot Park attraction site outside Moscow. Prosecutors say chief accountant Andrey Puchkov and procurement department head Ivan Trifonoglo accepted 27.5 million rubles ($284,200) in bribes to ignore contract violations by a company responsible for the park’s facility maintenance. (Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee)
- Multiple criminal cases against Patriot Park managers are part of a larger military purge that began after Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s dismissal in May 2024.
📺 Failure to disclose the “foreign agent” status of two guest judges for a televised comedy sketch has resulted in a small fine for KVN-TV (a subsidiary of Gazprom Media). The “agents” in question were musicians Semyon Slepakov and Andrey Makarevich. (Moscow Courts Press Service)
🏳️⚧️ The mother of a transgender 16-year-old in St. Petersburg will keep her parental rights after a local judge rejected a request to strip her of maternity after city officials learned of the student’s hormonal therapy. The teenager in question identifies as a woman and currently lives with grandparents. The child’s father did not object to losing his parental rights, and the court revoked them. (St. Petersburg Courts Press Service)
4. The Ukraine war
🇺🇸 Kamala Harris told 60 Minutes that she would not negotiate a solution to the war in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin bilaterally. “Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine,” said the vice president. When asked if she supports NATO membership for Ukraine, she said her administration will address the issue “if and when it arrives.” (CBS)
🚨 More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from the Crimean coastal city of Feodosia due to a fire at a local oil depot caused by a Ukrainian drone strike early on Monday morning, according to Igor Tkachenko, who heads the Russian administration installed after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula. (Telegram)
💥 Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has completely blocked off and ordered the evacuation of two small towns roughly 30 kilometers (almost 19 miles) southwest of the region’s capital in response to “constant Ukrainian shelling.” Local officials have promised one-time assistance payments and temporary housing to refugees from Petrovka and Solovyovka. (Vyacheslav Gladkov, Telegram)
🕊️ Ukraine won’t stage a second “peace summit” before the next U.S. presidential election, Zelensky administration presidential aide Daria Zarivna said in an interview on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials will spend the rest of October holding “issue-focused conferences” to reach different communiqués that will form the basis of the second summit’s plan to end Russia’s invasion. (Telegraf)
👮 Kremlin ideologist Dmitry Chistilin is in Ukrainian custody after a joint operation by Ukraine’s Security Service and Moldovan law enforcement. Kyiv accuses the Russian-Ukrainian dual citizen of drafting some of the analytical reports that paved the way to the Kremlin’s decision to invade in February 2022, particularly while he served as an aide to former presidential economic adviser Sergey Glazyev. Chistilin is charged with treason and the felony offense of “justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine.” (Ukraine’s Security Service)
☣️ Moscow’s use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine has led the British government to sanction Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defenses and its commander, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. London also sanctioned two Russian Defense Ministry laboratories for supporting the development and deployment of these weapons. (U.K. Government)
- In May 2024, the U.S. determined that Russia’s systematic use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces violates the Chemical Weapons Convention. The State Department consequently sanctioned the same three entities now designated by the British authorities, in addition to a construction company and laboratory equipment supplier involved in Russia’s chemical weapons program. (U.S. State Department)
🎬 Controversial Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova has been charged in Ukraine with the felony offenses of “justifying Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine and glorifying its participants,” according to Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada’s Free Speech Committee. At the time of this writing, neither Ukraine’s Security Service nor Prosecutor General has confirmed this information. (Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Telegram)
- Trofimova’s film Russians at War has enraged critics who call it a work of Kremlin propaganda that deliberately “humanizes” Russian troops and whitewashes the invasion’s many atrocities. Trofimova defends her movie as independent filmmaking but admits to coordinating her work with Russian military officials. International film festivals in Zurich and Toronto canceled screenings of Russians at War amid “public safety concerns.” (Meduza)
5. As the world turns
🧗 Five Russian mountain climbers died in Nepal over the weekend. Their bodies were discovered in the snow during a helicopter flyover of Mount Dhaulagiri. The group apparently fell roughly 500 meters (1,640 feet) and was found at an altitude of 7,100 meters (almost 23,300 feet). (Mountain.ru)
🕵️♀️ MI5 head Ken McCallum warned in a Threat Update on Tuesday that Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency is engaged in “a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets” that sometimes relies on criminal networks for arson and sabotage plots amid a shortage of available embassy-based spies. (The Guardian)
🧪 Trump secretly gifted COVID-19 tests to Putin “for his personal use” in 2020, early in the coronavirus pandemic, amid a crucial shortage of tests, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Putin reportedly “took pains” to conceal the gift to protect Trump’s domestic reputation. (The Washington Post)
🇪🇺 The E.U. Council announced a new framework to respond to Russia’s “destabilizing actions abroad,” allowing union officials to “target individuals and entities” engaged in Russian actions and policies hostile to Europe’s “fundamental values, security, independence, and integrity.” The framework’s restrictive measures include travel bans, asset freezing, and blocked access to private funds. (Council of the European Union)
No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Donate here.