Chechnya

Europe

Podcast: Tolstoy would shit II

The bellicose and authoritarian Russian state’s propaganda exploitation of the anarcho-pacifist novelist Leo Tolstoy is an obvious and perverse irony. But a less obvious irony also presents itself. Like all fascist regimes, that of Vladimir Putin is stigmatizing and even criminalizing homosexuality and other sexual “deviance.” Following alarming reports of “concentration camps” for gay men in the Russian republic of Chechnya, Moscow began to impose an anti-gay agenda nationwide. A 2020 constitutional reform officially enshrined “traditional marriage,” while a “gay propaganda law” imposes penalties on any outward expression of gay identity, resulting in police raids on Moscow gay bars. The “LGBT movement” has been designated a “terrorist organization”; media depictions of same-sex love are banned as “deviant content.” Yet the venerable littérateur now glorified as a symbol of Russian nationalism may have himself been gay. In Episode 247 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Javier Sethness Castro, author of Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography (Routledge 2023).

Europe

Russian playwright gets prison for ‘justifying terrorism’

A Russian military court convicted playwright Svetlana Petriychuk and theater director Yevgeniya Berkovich and sentenced them each to six years in prison over a play that was found to “justify terrorism.” The basis for the prosecution was the play Finist the Brave Falcon, its plot drawing inspiration from the plight of Russian women who went to Syria to marry Islamist fighters and were convicted upon return to their home country. Berkovich and Petrychuk repeatedly stated that their play was intended to warn against terrorism and not to justify it. In the eyes of the defense and human rights organizations, the real reason for the prosecution was retribution against the pair for their outspoken opposition to the war in Ukraine. (Photo: StageRussia)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: conspiracy theory and the Moscow terror

The deadly terror attack in a concert hall outside Moscow was immediately claimed by ISIS-K, the Islamic State network’s Afghanistan franchise. But just as quickly, the Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services accused each other of being behind it—the latter saying it was organized as a “provocation” to expand Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Putin’s rise to power, including his recent rise to outright autocratic power, as well as his various military adventures, have indeed been lubricated every step of the way by terror attacks. But who was actually behind the Crocus City Center attack may not really matter overmuch. If 9-11 was a “Reichstag Fire” for the hyper-interventionist aims of Dubya Bush, that analogy may prove to apply even more closely to the concert hall carnage serving the war aims and totalitarian domestic agenda of Vladimir Putin. Bill Weinberg discusses in Episode 219 of the CounterVortex podcast. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: governor of Moscow Oblast via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Moscow terror: ISIS, Ukraine or ‘false flag’?

A group of armed men opened fire at a concert hall in a Moscow suburb, killing at least 133 people and injuring scores more. ISIS-K, the Islamic State network’s Afghanistan franchise, quickly took credit for the attack. But just as quickly, the Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services accused each other of being behind it—the latter saying it was organized as a “provocation” to expand Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Putin’s rise to power, including his recent rise to outright autocratic power, as well as his various military adventures, have indeed been lubricated every step of the way by terror attacks. But who was actually behind the Crocus City Center attack does not really matter overmuch. Just as 9-11—whoever was behind it—served the hyper-interventionist aims of Dubya Bush and his administration, we may be reasonably certain that the concert hall carnage will serve the war aims and totalitarian domestic agenda of Vladimir Putin. (Image: Wikipedia)

Europe

Screw tightens in Russia and Belarus

The Russian Ministry of Justice formally designated Dmitry Muratov, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning internationally esteemed journalist, as a “foreign agent.” The label, reminiscent of the “enemy of the people” designation of the Soviet era, imposes harsh constraints on activities and requires sources of funding to be disclosed. The law has been widely used by the Kremlin to silence critics. Muratov is editor at Novaya Gazeta, one of the rare media outlets in Russia openly critical of President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, a court in Belarus sentenced journalist and human rights activist Larysa Schchyrakova to three and a half years in prison on charges of “insulting” government officials, disseminating “false information,” and promoting “extremist” activities. Her organization, Gomelskaya Viasna, was aso ordered banned. The charges concern Schchyrakova’s advocacy and rights monitoring work during the 2020 anti-government protests in Belarus. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Russia: court closes Sakharov human rights center

A Moscow court ruled to liquidate the Public Commission for the Preservation of the Heritage of Academician Sakharov, or Sakharov Center, one of Russia’s most respected human rights organizations, after an application from the Ministry of Justice. The Sakharov Center, established in 1996, had been convening public discussions for citizens to speak about the status of human rights and freedom in the country. The Justice Ministry contended that the Center’s discussion groups constituted a “violation of its territorial sphere of activity.” In a statement, the Center warned of closing political space in Russia, saying: “Uncontrolled power corrupts society… Sakharov warned about this, we see it with our own eyes today.” (Photo of Sakharov Center building via Wikipedia. Sign reads: “War in Chechnya since 1994. Enough!”)

The Caucasus

UN: Russia must investigate Chechnya attack

A group of United Nations human rights experts called on the Russian Federation to investigate a violent attack in Chechnya against journalist Yelena Milashina and human rights lawyer Alexander Nemov, and bring to justice the perpetrators. Milashina was covering, and Nemov participating in, the trial of Zarema Musaeva, the mother of exiled opposition activists who challenged the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. Milashina is known for breaking the story of the “anti-gay purges” in Kadyrov’s Chechnya in 2017, which sparked international outcry. (Image: OHCHR via Twitter)

Europe

Russia: from ‘denazification’ to ‘desatanization’

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine in February, the Kremlin has been using the rhetoric of “denazification” to justify its war of aggression. It now appears to be updating its nomenclature. Aleksey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, told state news agency RIA Novosti that Ukraine has become a “totalitarian hypersect” where citizens have abandoned Orthodox Christian values. He added that the “desatanization” of Ukraine should be a goal of the “special military operation.” Jews in Ukraine and Russia alike are aghast that Pavlov named the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic group as one of the “hundreds of sects” that need to be purged from Ukraine, calling it a “supremacist cult.” (Photo: Wikipedia)

Europe

Ukraine: anarchists reject Moscow propaganda

The British anarchist journal Freedom features an interview with Ukraine’s Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (RKAS), challenging the hegemony of Russian propaganda on the supposed anti-war left in the West, entitled “‘Leftists’ outside Ukraine are used to listening only to people from Moscow.” The two longtime RKAS militants interviewed are Anatoliy Dubovik, born in Russia but now living in Dnipro, and Sergiy Shevchenko, from Donetsk but forced to relocate to Kyiv after the Russian-backed separatists seized power in Donbas. Both have been involved in protests against the Ukrainian government’s gutting of labor protections and other “neoliberal” reforms. But they strenuously reject the flirtation between elements of the international left and the authoritarian Donbas separatists and their Russian sponsors. They especially protest Western lecturing to Ukrainians that they must “negotiate”—which inevitably means ceding territory to Russia in exchange for “peace.”

Europe

Podcast: Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol

In Episode 144 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Donbas region not only came on exactly the same day as the 1938 Munich Agreement, which approved Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland—it was also the same day that Putin launched two of his previous criminal military adventures. On Sept. 30, 1999, Russian tanks rolled into Chechnya, marking the start of the Second Chechen War, with massive aerial bombardment of the region’s capital city of Groazny. On Sept. 30, 2015, Russian began air-strikes in Syria, marking the start of a massive military intervention on behalf of the Bashar Assad dictatorship, in which the city of Aleppo would be virtually destroyed by bombardment. And in Putin’s new war of aggression in Ukraine, the Azov seaport of Mariupol has been similarly nearly obliterated. A review of this history reveals Vladimir Putin as a serial city-destroyer, who must be deposed and put on trial for his crimes against humanity. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Russia keeps escalating nuclear war threats

As Russia suffers more territorial losses on the ground in eastern Ukraine, figures close to the Putin regime are escalating both the frequency and blatancy of their threats to use nuclear weapons. Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region of Chechnya who has mobilized his regional forces to fight in Ukraine, stated on social media platform Telegram: “In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the…use of low-yield nuclear weapons.” Kadyrov’s comment came as Russian forces retreated from Lyman, a key city in Donetsk oblast—mere days after Putin had declared the entire oblast as annexed. Former president Dmitry Medvedev stated that if Kyiv continues its offensive on annexed territory, Russia could be “forced to use the most fearsome weapon against the Ukrainian regime.” (Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense via BAS)

Europe

Intrigue over assassination of Daria Dugina

Darya Dugina, Russian state media war propagandist and the daughter of ultra-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed when a remote-controlled explosive device planted in her SUV went off as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is charging that the assassination was “prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services.” According to the FSB, a Ukrainian citizen, Natalya Vovk, carried out the attack and then fled to Estonia. Russian media reports are claiming she was a member of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, and that the elder Dugin was the actual target of the attack. A statement from Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the killing reflects Kyiv’s reliance on “terrorism as an instrument of its criminal ideology.” Kyiv vigorously denies any involvement in the killing. In Estonia, the prosecutor general’s office said that it “has not received any requests or inquiries from the Russian authorities on this topic.” (Image: Social media post in which Dugin called for “genocide” of the Ukrainian “race of degenerates.” Via Twitter)