Latvia’s decision confirms the grand narrative of Vladimir Putin’s administration that the outside world hates and despises Russians as a people, writes ‘s Russia correspondent Heikki Heiskanen.
MOSCOW The reaction of the Russian president’s press secretary to the news about the cancellation of the license of the television channel Dožd was very descriptive.
– Someone always feels that things are better somewhere else than at home. And someone always feels that there is free time somewhere else and there is no free time at home. Here is another glaring example that shows the fallacy of such illusions, Dmitry Peskov told reporters today on Tuesday.
So Peskov was able to say that it is the same everywhere.
It fits well with the cynical mindset that is the central driving force behind the Putinist ideological structure: No one has clean flour in their bag, everyone lies in the end.
This, of course, gives a distorted picture of reality. In Russia, practically all independent and opposition-minded media have been driven out of the game since Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24th.
The laws enacted in March because of the “military special operation” have practically criminalized anti-war sentiments.
A good example of that is the ongoing trial in which an opposition politician Ilya Yashinia threatens no less than nine years in prison because he dealt with accusations of war crimes by Russian soldiers in Butša in his YouTube video.
Basically a cynical message – nowhere is really free – sells easily in a country where the political solutions made in the name of democracy and free market economy in the 1990s meant the distribution of state assets into the hands of the few and harshly poor times for the vast majority of the people.
Based on these experiences, Russians don’t really trust their own authorities, but on the other hand, they don’t trust the liberal opposition either, not to mention foreign rulers.
This mistrust in part fuels political passivity, and passivity has generally suited those in power.
The Dožd television channel had to suspend its operations in Russia in March and received a business license in Latvia in June.
The channel was fined in Latvia for showing a map where the Crimean peninsula was marked as part of Russia, and another fine for calling the Russian armed forces “our army”.
The last mistake was that the presenter said during the live broadcast that he hoped that the channel had helped arrange equipment and basic supplies for the Russian soldiers.
The channel had reported extensively how the soldiers who had been drafted into the movement had been thrown into miserable conditions.
According to Dožd, it was purely the presenter’s mistake, but the channel apologized and hastily fired the presenter. This did not convince the Latvian authorities.
Not necessarily surprising, that the Russian host can feel sympathy for his compatriots who are in miserable conditions, and therefore wish for even better equipment and supplies for them. However, the channel mainly directs its message to other Russians and tries to talk to them.
In the West, it seems that they now expect that Putin and the Russians opposing the war in Ukraine prove at every turn that they are “good” Russians.
Demanding perfection can easily go against its purpose, unless the purpose is to prove that there are no “good” Russians.
It also fits well with the idea spread by the Putin administration that Western countries hate all Russians and everything Russian.
Then it would probably be pointless to entertain any hopes that the Russians would at some point turn against Putin’s regime on a larger scale.
Dožd has been an important voice for many Russians critical of Putin’s regime and the war. The channel still plans to continue its operations on the network’s YouTube service.
In this article you can read the latest information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine