Notes at the Front

Last Word

Roman Ivanov, 51, a journalist living and working for RusNews in Korolyov, outside Moscow, was detained in April 2023 for online posts he made in April 2022, October 2022, and March 2023, regarding the murder of innocent civilians in Bucha, Ukraine (without explicitly mentioning who had done the murdering – Russian forces), as well as other war crimes of the Russian army. In March 2024, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison under Article 207.3.2.e of the Russian Criminal Code, which bans disseminating false information based on “political, ideological, racial, ethnic, or religious hatred.”

This is the Last Word statement Ivanov made after his sentencing:

Your Honor, I did not prepare a Last Word, so I will simply say what I think. I do not want to speak or hold forth on journalism or its problems in Russia, because journalism no longer exists in Russia. I do not want to lecture on the judicial system, on the courts, because there is no longer a judicial system or justice in Russia. I do not want to speak of politics, which also do not exist in Russia. I just want to talk about us, about all people, about Russians.

I would like to say that we all want to be happy. That’s human nature – people dream of their own happiness. Will those who brought this criminal case against me, who persecuted me, who judge me, who guard me – will they be happy if I am unhappy, if my family is unhappy? Of course not. We must ask ourselves why we sow grief and misfortune all around us – our country has been simply overwhelmed by an avalanche of grief and misfortune.

Working as an independent journalist in the city of Korolyov, I sought to respond to any human pain, to any problem, to help others. For me, perhaps one of the worst consequences of this trial is that, for a very long time, people in the city of Korolyov will be left without my help. I won’t be able to highlight any of their problems. I won’t be able to tell them the truth about what is happening in Korolyov.  I will no longer be able to broadcast live from the territorial election commission, so that people can know how the city’s electoral results are arrived at. For me, this is probably most painful of all.

I mentioned happiness, and I may be rambling a bit, but you know, happiness only surrounds a person who is himself happy. I consider myself happy because I have friends who are always there for me. I have my family, with which I have not communicated for 10 months. I have the love of my life. I am the luckiest man on Earth because she agreed to be my wife. You are trying to
make me unhappy. I don’t know why you need that.

I feel sorry, of course, for my family, for my wife, because I had big plans, including for a family. We wanted to have children. Now it is not clear what will happen with that.

I was happy practicing my profession, happy to be helping people. I had big plans, professionally. There were many topics I wanted to raise and a project I wanted to develop. At this point, we can forget about all that. As I said, I don’t know why they want to make me unhappy. It’s a real puzzle. But still, I will be happy. And, as a happy person, I’ll spread goodness and happiness around myself. I don’t hold a grudge against anyone. Not against those who broke down the door to my apartment and conducted a search there. Well, in general, I don’t hold a grudge against anyone. There is no need for that.

I started by saying that our country has simply been overwhelmed by an avalanche of grief that no one wants to see. Just as no one wants to see that this grief has befallen me. It is as if everyone feels that it is absolutely normal for people who have not caused any harm to end up behind bars. But it’s horrifying when this grief spills out beyond the borders of our country. When others experience grief because of us.

From the start, I have spoken of the criminal nature, the criminal essence of the special military operation. From the start, I told people that it will bring nothing but misfortune and grief. There will be no happiness.

Perhaps, when we were young, we all read Maeterlinck’s "The Blue Bird.[1] It is [a story about] a quest for happiness. It is about trying to catch this bird in your mouth. And the most terrible moment in the book is when Tyltyl is looking for a blue bird in the palace of the Queen of the Night and he had to open the door to the cave, behind which was War. He had never seen anything more horrific in his life, even though he only opened it for one second and then slammed it shut. This door is not just slightly ajar now, it is wide open. If I am unhappy and my family is unhappy, this fate will sooner or later visit everyone. In this situation, misfortune spreads like an avalanche.

In conclusion, I would like to tell you about a simple, everyday experience that left a profound impression on me.

My wife and I went to Ukraine in the summer of 2018 – it was a driving vacation to the Odessa region. Back in in 2018, when everyone was telling me that I shouldn’t go there:  “They’ll see that you’re Russian, they’ll kill you there.”

Nothing of the sort happened to us. We drove along the entire coast of Odessa Oblast, right up to the border with Romania. We traveled with tents and camped in all the places where tourists camp. There was a huge number of Ukrainians from different cities, there was even a tent with a flag... But it was really... In short, there was an exchange of contact information. But even these people didn’t say anything to us. No complaints. Although the war was already underway. It was going on in Donetsk, in Lugansk.

Everyone was happy to see us, we got along great with everyone. Because we hadn’t come in a tank. And we didn’t come with a “might makes right” attitude. I was at the time shocked to see that there were practically no Russians in Ukraine.

In the summer, the Black Sea is wonderful, everyone relaxes. Fabulous places. Ukrainians were vacationing, Poles were vacationing, people from the Baltics were vacationing, Moldovans from Transnistria were vacationing. But there were practically no Russians.

They looked at our license plate with wonder, at our Moscow license plates. I just had a pain in my heart when I realized this. I realized that our peoples had been torn apart, that this criminal government had torn from us the people who had been closest to us.

But then perhaps the most important episode occurred. We were staying at a place very popular for campers… relaxing by the sea in Ukraine. And there was a family from the suburbs of Kyiv, from Bila Tserkva – parents and their children. A boy, probably in about the third grade. And a slightly younger girl. We became friends with them – we had some board games, so we played board games with them. It was a lot of fun.

But I noticed that the children were a bit tense. This was quite strange. And then, at one point, a simply shocking situation unfolded, because the boy asked me: “Are you really from Russia?”

 “Yes, we are from Russia,” we said.

And he says: “Are you really from Moscow?”

We say: “Well, yes, we are not exactly from Moscow, we live right next to Moscow, in the city of Korolyov.”

He was silent for a bit, and then, after some time, in all seriousness, not making a joke of any kind, he asked: “So you aren’t going to kill us?”

To say that I was in shock is an understatement.

I was shocked by what was happening. And what might happen next. I spoke to his father, and I said: “How did this situation come about? Why do your children say that?”

He said: “Well, because there is war in Donbas, because
at school they say that Russia is an enemy of Ukraine and has some aggressive plans or other.”

I asked him to explain to his children that ordinary
Russian people, ordinary Russians, do not wish any harm to Ukrainians, that this is some kind of problematic situation at the level of the top Russian leadership.

Now, in 2024, I think with horror how I deceived these children, telling them: “Don’t be afraid, nothing will happen. We will not kill you.”

Unfortunately, we are killing them. I don’t know what happened to this family, because Bila Tserkva was hit by rockets. But I will always remember them. And I think that when we meet again, it will be very difficult for me to talk to them. We can’t go back to how it was.

I published my first post about the situation in Bucha so that Russians could see how awful the war is. That it brings nothing but fear, pain, grief, destruction, loss – both to another country and to our country as well. Thousands of families have lost relatives. Fathers, children, and sons have not returned. And more families  are gripped with fear that they’ll also have to arrange a funeral.

We must understand that everything that happened is our fault. I admit that what happened was my fault also – as a citizen of Russia, who allowed this to happen, who allowed the Russian authorities to make such catastrophic decisions. As a journalist who couldn’t get through to society.

To explain that “might makes right” is something from the Middle Ages. But we live in the 21st century. Reveling in primitive emotions is simply monstrous and low.

What can we do in this situation? To be honest, I don’t know any longer. But I want to beg forgiveness from all the citizens of Ukraine to whom our country has brought grief. Whom our country has deprived of relatives, loved ones, friends. All of whom can never be returned. And I am not asking this for the whole country, but personally for myself – as Roman Viktorovich Ivanov, citizen of the Russian Federation.

I want to kneel before the relatives of those who were killed in Bucha. Although I don’t know who killed them. But these are the consequences of what our country has come to.

Those Who Left

Who are the Russians that emigrated after the country invaded Ukraine? Though no robust socioeconomic data on the postwar exodus has been published, estimates claim that between 800,000 and one million Russians voluntarily left the country after February 2022 or are still actively trying to leave. An NGO that helps Russians pursue university education abroad has polled over 1,800 people in over 40 countries to get a sense of who these people are. According to their research, only 20% don’t already have higher education. 9% are current university students and another 9% plan to enter university programs. Some 63% said they are settled in their new country of residence, while 28% are planning to move to a different country, and 7% are leaving Russia within 6 months. Of those who emigrated, 67% are in some kind of educational program, including 18% studying at universities. Only 22% are seriously considering returning to Russia, while most others say their return would depend on political change in the country.

Source: Meduza

Those Who Stayed

With many Russians having left the country, it is perhaps logical that polls inside Russia reflect a falling percentage of people who are looking to emigrate. According to Levada Center, 9% would like to move abroad, the lowest percentage since the question was first asked in 1990 (back then, 11% wanted to move abroad, while the highest figure, 22%, was attained in 2011, 2013 and 2021. Predictably, most people considering moving are in the 18 to 24 and 25 to 39 age brackets (15% of each). Among the reasons for wanting to leave, people cite their desire to provide a better future for their children (43%) and the “political circumstances in Russia” (36%), economic conditions (36%), curiosity about other cultures (35%) and better healthcare (29%). Among the top preferred countries, Russians cite the United States (11%), Germany (8%) and Italy (6%), though 14% said they couldn’t name a preferred destination.

Some 16% of Russians said they have relatives and friends who have moved abroad in the past three years. And 43% of Russians believe that those leaving are traitors of Russia.

Source: Levada

Death's Holiday Over

For the first time in many years, Russian politicians are discussing a return of the death penalty. This coincides with the appointment of a new head of the Supreme Court – only the second person to hold the post since 1991 – 70-year-old Irina Podnosova, who studied law alongside Vladimir Putin.

While the Russian justice system has been growing increasingly repressive in recent years, the death penalty has not been used (de jure) since 1996, when serial killer Sergei Golovkin (also known as Fisher) was executed. A moratorium on executions was approved by Russia’s Constitutional Court in 1999, and the same court further banned lower courts from sentencing convicts to death in 2009. Russia was further obliged to give up the death penalty as a precondition of membership in the Council of Europe, which Russia subsequently decided to leave in 2022.

Outspoken lawmakers were quick to embrace the death penalty in the wake of the terrorist attack on Crocus City, where many concert-goers were shot dead and the building was set ablaze.

“There cannot be any other punishment for these scoundrels than death,” said Leonid Slutsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, State Duma speaker, also seemed to endorse considering reinstating the death penalty, arguing that “the laws have been enacted, the corresponding norms [providing for reinstatement] exist in legislation. As of today, the Constitutional Court decision that delays putting these norms into practice remains in effect,” he said, according to BBC Russian.

Before executions were suspended, there were only five types of crimes that were punishable by death: murder, attempted murder of a state or public official, police employee, or employee of the justice system, and genocide.

Commentators were quick to point out that terrorism is not on this list of crimes, so the perpetrators of the Crocus attacks would not face such punishment. But, given the fluidity of Russian laws and their application, the fact that less than 1% of court cases result in acquittal, and the ever increasing pressure on Putin’s critics remaining in Russia, the discussion of reinstating the death penalty is truly ominous.

Meanwhile, Podnosova, the new Supreme Court chief, had a reassuring take on the situation. “I think this is a question of changing the Constitution, which is [the lawmakers’] prerogative. Judges are mere practitioners of the law, and whatever is decided, this is what we shall do,” she said during discussion of the subject in the Russian Senate, according to Kommersant.

Horrible Odds

An investigation by the BBC Russian service looked closely at 1,040 obituaries of Russians fighting in Ukraine, where both the date of military contract signing and the date of death were known. These were formerly convicted individuals recruited from Russian prisons. Five hundred were fighting in the military’s Storm-Z penal units, while 540 served in units of the Wagner private military company. The investigation concluded that half of the convicts recruited by Wagner died within three months, while half of those recruited by the military fared even worse, lasting two months. A small minority of either survived more than six months.

Source: BBC

555,743 Russians were convicted of various offenses in 2023. Of these, 146,837 were cases of domestic violence, a charge which has been made less serious because it was changed from a criminal to an administrative offense. In 90% of these cases, the perpetrators were fined, paying an average of R5,500 ($59) The Russian budget received a total R187 million from those convicted on domestic violence charges (by Russian law, they do not pay anything to the victim). 39 people were convicted of state treason (up from 16 in 2022), the highest number in the past 14 years. 9 people were convicted of espionage (up from one in 2022), and 73 for divulging state secrets (up from 69 in the previous year). There were 478 cases against individuals or institutions who failed to disclose that they are on the list of “foreign agents” (a label the government has launched to tag political opponents who allegedly receive funding from abroad), who were sentenced to fines totalling over R15 million. 14 Russians were put on trial for not disclosing their citizenship or permanent residency in a foreign country, bringing a total number of individuals convicted on this charge to 46 since 2019. In most cases, the convictions led to fines.

Source: https://verstka.media/gosizmena-inoagenty-voennye-statistika-sudov-2023