June 19, 2023

Military Against War


Military Against War
83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade's artillery exercise with D-30, 2S9, Kornet ATGM, 2B11.
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, Wikimedia Commons

The Russian military has created a secret anti-Putin organization called Orden Respubliki ("Order of the Republic"). The organization's existence became known via an interview with Lieutenant of the Russian Aerospace Forces Dmitry Mishov.

A combat helicopter pilot, Mishov escaped from Russia to avoid being sent to the front and applied for refugee status in Lithuania. According to Mishov, he turned to Orden Respubliki to smuggle himself across the border. Orden Respubliki is comprised of officers who have a negative attitude toward Putin and the war with Ukraine. 

"I wrote to them via Telegram. They listened to my story and said they would help," Mishov said. "They created a route for me so that I wouldn’t run into a border guards’ outpost."

Journalists from Mozhem Obyasnit  interviewed representatives of Orden Respubliki via Telegram. The interviewees said the association was formed about a year ago on the basis of a secret officer’s club that consisted of former and current military personnel. After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the club members decided to "act to the best of their abilities." 

Representatives of Orden Respubliki said they are fighting against "an organized criminal group that has seized all the levers of power in Russia and is holding 140 million people hostage." They advocate for the transformation of Russia into a parliamentary republic and the immediate cessation of the war in Ukraine. According to those interviewed, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian General Staff of the Armed Forces have violated the laws of war, and Russia should not have invaded Ukraine because "It is impossible to fight with relatives."

Representatives of Orden Respubliki said their main activity is "intelligence in exile." What they meant by this is unknown. At the same time, they said that Orden Respubliki is not connected with the Military Forces of Ukraine, the Legion Svoboda Rossy, or the Russky Dobrovolchesky Korpus

This is not the first time that members of the Russian military have come out in opposition to the war with Ukraine. In particular, paratrooper Pavel Filantyev, who participated at the beginning of the invasion, condemned the aggression against Ukraine, fled the country, and published a book about the war. As well, a retired Air Forces major organized individual pickets with pacifist appeals in Belgorod. And in Tambov a former military man and founder of a military-patriotic club publicly urged his former cadets not to participate in the war against Ukraine. For this, he was charged with discrediting the Russian army.

You Might Also Like

  • June 14, 2023

"Go Defend Your Homeland"

In Chechnya, law enforcement uses threats and blackmail to send LGBT persons, drug users, and "disloyal" citizens to war.
ROC: Pacifism is Heresy
  • June 15, 2023

ROC: Pacifism is Heresy

A Russian Orthodox priest called for peace. In response, the church said pacifism is "incompatible" with Orthodox teachings.
Shooting up Deeres
  • June 12, 2023

Shooting up Deeres

Russian military claims anti-tank successes, but pro-Kremlin analysts beg to differ.
War and Beef
  • June 07, 2023

War and Beef

Sculptures of soldiers and tanks made from ground meat are making waves.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955