The doors of activists in Moscow are covered with graffiti with warnings. A food blogger faces 15 years in prison for “discrediting” the Russian military, while calls are being made for a former senior official to be fired on charges of “treason” for opposing the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday sent a hateful warning to “traitors”. Putin said that the West may try to use these circles as a “fifth column” to destroy Russia; but he said the Russians could quickly distinguish “patriots from the disgrace of society.”
Just hours after Putin’s statements, an activist in Moscow named Dmitry Ivanov said he saw graffiti on his mother’s apartment door saying “Do not betray the motherland”.
The graffiti also included “Z” symbols used to rally support for Moscow’s actions to disarm Ukraine and what it describes as a “special military operation to de-Nazis”. This symbol appears on armored vehicles and tanks of Russia.
Ivanov, who protested the war, said that he had no idea who wrote the graffiti, but that he knew that at least three people, including activists and a journalist, had similar writings on their walls.
“I don’t know what their purpose is: to scare, not intimidate, or just to upset you,” the 22-year-old activist told Reuters. “It’s hard to scare us with these kinds of actions, we get used to this kind of behavior,” he said. Ivanov added that this action is likely to be linked to Putin’s speech.
“Society is self-cleaning”
Addressing the ministers in his cabinet yesterday, Putin noted that the Russians will expose traitors like “flies” and that the benefit of society requires it.
“I am convinced that the natural and necessary self-purification of society will strengthen our country, our solidarity, harmony and readiness to face any challenge,” the Russian leader said.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, when asked about Putin’s words today, said that a large number of people showed that they are traitors. Peskov said, “They’re getting out of our lives themselves. Some people quit their jobs, some end their active working life, some leave the country and move to other countries. This is how this cleaning takes place,” he said.
After Putin’s speech, the Commission of Investigation, a security unit in Russia, announced that a food blogger was being investigated for spreading “false information” about the Russian military on his blog. He was the first person that the blogger commission announced that an investigation was opened against him.
According to the law adopted by Russia on March 4, this crime foresees a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
Veronika Belotserkovskaya, who lives in the south of France, told Reuters that although she is an apolitical person, she is not particularly surprised that she has been targeted, and that she fits the image of someone ordinary Russians can hate.
Belotserkovskaya, the fat spoiled woman who lives in Italy on the Cote D’Azur, makes foie gras paste, eats lobster, but dares to talk nonsense from there. I have all these traits that the common man might see as hateful,” she said.
Also after Putin’s speech, a senior member of Russia’s ruling party called for former deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich to be immediately removed from the head of a foundation that promotes economic innovation.
Dvorkovich, who now heads the International Chess Federation, denounced the war in a commentary that appeared in the Western media.
Russian deputy Andrei Turchak said of Dvorkovich, “He made his choice. “This is nothing but very national treason, fifth column behavior that the president is talking about,” he said.