Russia | Return in force of the denunciation

Never has the West been so keen to see the people of Russia turn against the regime of Vladimir Putin. However, it is rather a witch hunt instigated by the Kremlin which begins in the country.

Nicolas Berube
The Press

An anti-war teacher reported to the police by her students. A couple arrested for discussing war victims in a café. A woman denounced by a neighbor for having posted a pacifist message on her balcony.

Russians have begun to denounce their neighbors, colleagues and friends who oppose the invasion of Ukraine, creating a climate where any divergence from official Kremlin propaganda can have serious consequences.

“The denunciation is catastrophic as behavior, explains in interview Alexandre, Russian citizen specialist in public relations and anti-war activist who left Moscow for Eastern Europe a few days ago. It’s meant to frighten, scare people. This is something that has no place in a modern country. »

In early April, the Kremlin set up a hotline and website and sent mass text messages to people in various parts of Russia urging them to speak out against “traitors”.

Last month, Vladimir Putin called for a “self-purification” of Russian society to “clean it up”.

Symbol of this new wave of denunciations: Irina Gen, a 45-year-old English teacher from the city of Penza, south-east of Moscow. Last month, M.^me Gen made anti-war remarks in front of two 12-year-old students who had come to ask him why they could no longer participate in a planned sports competition in Europe.

“It will continue until Russia starts to behave in a civilized way,” she told them during this conversation. Ukraine is a sovereign state. We have a totalitarian regime. Here, any dissent is considered a thought crime. »

Recorded without his knowledge by one of the students, the conversation was relayed to the authorities, and cost Mr.^me Gen. The teacher now faces a possible 10-year prison sentence under a new law that prohibits criticizing the war in Ukraine.

Since then, the media and civil rights organizations in Russia have reported numerous other cases of denunciations, “blacklists” of “opponents of the motherland”, while critics of the war have seen the door of their apartment marked with the letter Z, used by the power to promote the invasion of Ukraine. Last week, Dmitry Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and publisher of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazetaa Kremlin critic whose publication is currently suspended, was assaulted on board a train by two men who sprayed him with red paint.

No unanimity

Paradoxically, these attacks and acts of denunciation show that there are tensions and disagreements within Russian society, notes Guillaume Sauvé, specialist in Russia at the Center for International Studies and Research at the University of Montreal. .

“If there are so many people who are denounced, it is because there are Russians who say denounceable things. Obviously, there is no unanimity about the war in Ukraine. »

Mr. Sauvé notes that it is difficult to know how many Russians are opposed to the war in a country where even answering opinion polls is risky.

As soon as the Russian invasion began, the Ministry of Education of Russia sent to all Russian schools a speech that all teachers were supposed to read to their students to instill in them the “correct” interpretation of the war in Ukraine.

“It seems that there was a lot of resistance: teachers didn’t read it, or else read it and the pupils, some of whom are almost adults, found it completely ridiculous. People are not stupid,” notes Mr. Sauvé.

From forced participation to non-participation

Many commentators have established a link with the techniques of Joseph Stalin, the dictator who made informing a system in the 1930s. At that time, the USSR was a young totalitarian state built on the basis of compulsory participation for all its population to the state-planned economy project.

For Alexander, a Russian citizen who wants to hide his last name, because he has to return to Russia in less than two months, when his tourist visa in an Eastern European country expires, the current situation is however quite different.

The strength of Vladimir Putin’s regime is that it is built on the basis of non-participation of the population, he says.

Unlike during the Stalin era, when whole swaths of Russian society were targeted for repressions and denunciations, the current wave is more targeted, he says. “Currently, we are not talking about mass repression. The denunciations mainly hit the independent press, opposition figures and activists. »

Luca Sollai, doctoral student and lecturer in the Department of History and the Department of Literature and World Languages ​​at the University of Montreal, says he is not surprised by the rise in cases of denunciation in Russia since the invasion of the ‘Ukraine.

“In a war situation, we see propaganda take more space, we see a restriction of freedom of opinion,” he said. This is true in democratic countries, and it is even more true in countries that do not have democratic structures, such as Russia. »

This trend is set to continue as long as the country is at war. “Diplomatically, we are at an impasse, and therefore the conflict could continue for a long time. »