December 10, 2022

The State is the Real Enemy of the People


The State is the Real Enemy of the People
Ilya Yashin at demonstration in 2019. Alexei Mironov

Last spring, antiwar opposition politician Ilya Yashin, 39, posted a YouTube video about potential Russian war crimes in Bucha, near Kiev, crimes that were already being documented by Western journalists and Ukrainian officials.

He was arrested two months later, in June, charged with "discrediting the Russian armed forces," but his channel on Youtube has continued to publish videos debunking Kremlin lies.

Yesterday, on December 9, he was convicted on the charges against him and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. Yet he was defiant and upbeat in his final statement, saying that "the verdict's authors optimistically evaluate Putin's future, too optimistically in my view."

Further, Yashin said:

“The trial was supposed to serve as the denunciation of ‘an enemy of the people,’ i.e. me, but it turned into an antiwar tribunal, and, in response, we only heard the prosecutor’s incoherent Cold War slogans... I can only repeat what was said on the day of my arrest: I am not afraid, and you should not be afraid. Changes are coming.

"My mission is to tell the truth. I spoke it in city squares, in television studios, in parliamentary stands. I will not give up on the truth even behind bars. After all, to quote the classics, “a lie is a religion for slaves, and only truth can be the god of a free man.”

Yashin rose to prominence during the mass protests following Vladimir Putin's re-election in 2011 and 2012. He went on to lead the People’s Freedom Party, known as PARNAS, and was elected as a municipal official in Moscow.

Yashin is a close friend of Alexei Navalny, also an imprisoned dissident, whose lawyers released a statement after the verdict was handed down:

“I have known Ilya Yashin since he was 18 years old, and he is probably the first friend I made in politics. Another shameless and lawless Putin verdict will not silence Ilya and should not intimidate the honest people of Russia. This is another reason we must fight and I have no doubt that we will win in the end.”

For his part, President Putin, when quizzed at a news conference on the day the verdict was handed down if he thought giving Yashin “eight years for words is too brutal,” replied, “Who is he? Interfering in the work of the country is unacceptable and I consider it inappropriate to question the decision of the court.”

The full text of Yashin's final remarks machine-translated by Google, can be found here.

 
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

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.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
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.
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. 
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
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.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
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.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.

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