(I know the Ukrainians are having it much harder rn, but in case you want to know what itās like in Russia, read this post.)
Ok so our honest government that has absolutely nothing to hide or be ashamed of threatens people with jailtime for calling the current events anything butĀ āmilitary operationā or for saying/implying that Russia attacks civilians in Ukraine :))
Naturally I can only state facts here, including what the news say and what people say. Iām pretty sure they canāt legally get me in trouble for that.
The facts are: there are bombings happening in Ukraine, people are either fleeing the country or hiding in basements/shelters. There are lots of accusations from both sides, difficult to prove or disprove if youāre just a person online and not in the middle of current events.
Itās ironic that the point of the āoperationā, according to their claims, is to help the Ukrainians and cleanse their country from neo-nazis, but Russian citizens are threatened with jail time for posting or spreading any links to funds that help the Ukrainian civilians. Itās also ironic that Putin hopes to cleanse the country from hatred towards Russians, and from what Iāve seen on social media, itās unsurprisingly having the opposite effect.Ā
The government forces government-owned companies to fire people who attend protests, sign pro-peace petitions and open letters. To be fair, itās illegal to protest in a group without asking official permission from the city/town authorities, but this takes quite a long time to recieve a permit, and people want the āmilitary operationāĀ to end now. Fines start at 120 USD, and over 6500 people were arrested in the first 6 days (there were much more people in the streets but most got away).
Btw you can donate at donate(dot)ovdinfo(dot)org (the page has an english version) to help people get legal help and pay for their fines. Itās an independent legal-aiding media project, if it didnāt exist - people would be much more scared to come out.
Police brutality is thriving, but some cops side with protesters and let them go. The protests have been happening every day, and in large cities the police is getting worn out.Ā
Senators are slowly siding with the protesters too, an impeachment proposal have been thrown around, but it hasnāt resulted into anything so far.
The government bans foreign and domestic media sources whose view on the situation differs from their official version. They call videos of captured Russian soldiers staged fakes, and claim Ukrainian nationalists are the ones shooting and bombing civilian buildings. Also the state-backed channels keep talking about how thisĀ āoperationā was highly necessary and that Ukraine provoked us by buying so much weaponry from the US lately.Ā
About Russian soldiers: there are allegations from the Soldierās Mothers Association that many drafted young men (20-22 of age) were forced to sign military contracts in spite of getting only 4 months of training. Russian government canāt legally use mandatory-drafted forces in aĀ āmilitary operationsā, only in wars, soā¦ yeah.Ā
The videos posted by the Ukrainian army show soldiers saying they were captured, and that their higer ups told them they were doing training exercises as they moved them here. Some say they were told that the conflict started with Ukraine attacking a Russian city. It is a fact that smartphones are being taken from soldiers before they leave the country, however some might find a way to keep a phone anyway.
Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes, Zelenski contacted the Hague court about that. Iām not qualified to verify any videos or photos posted surrounding the accusations, but you are free to google them and form your opinions. There are also some twitter accounts dedicated to fact-checking military footage.
On top of that, the ministry of defence claimed that there werenāt any losses on Russiaās side on the first two days, demanding to ignore the photos online and claiming them to also be fake. They admit to having losses now, but the numbers differ from the ones Ukraine is providing.
They keep talking about Donetsk and Lugansk, the regions that are currently recognized as their own countries only by Russia. The leaders of the regions claim that the reason for separation was oppression of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine by the Ukrainian government (in 2012 Russian language was removed from the list of state languages, leaving only Ukrainian). The separation happened in 2014, and Ukraine considered it to be under Russian occupation, since the people who came to power there were pro-Russian and recieved a lot of help from Kremlin. After that, the region have been a war zone for 8 years.
While it sucks that people have been under attack for 8 years, weāre talking about approximately 2 million people, the amount of people suffering from Russiaās current actions is around 190 million (the people of Ukraine, Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk all together, some suffer more than others, of course, but honestly, weāre all in deep shit).
Sanctions are hitting hard, even though many of them are targeting the president and his oligarch buddies, some of them are aimed at suffocating our economy and isolating us. Rouble is dropping, a dollar used to cost around 80 RUB before, now itās 110 and getting higher. Some payment systems stopped working here. Some people lost their livelihoods and businesses. The prices are going up, poor people get poorer and canāt afford food, shelter and medicine. The lack of foreign meds on the market will definitely kill some people if it hasnāt already.
There are some cases of hate crimes against Russians happening abroad, but generally people seem to understand that the president is the one who started at all, and the people donāt have much choice. The democracy in Russia is a fairytale few people believe in. Putin has been in power for 20 years, including the 4 years his buddy Medvedev was the president and he was the prime minister. He rewrote the constitution in order to get another opportunity of being re-elected (also throwing in a definition of marriage that excludes the possibility of gay marriage being legalized in Russia). You can probably guess whether the elections are rigged or not.
Young people argue with older generations, because the youth is less likely to believe the governmentās point of view. Iāve been trying to persuade my mom that whatās happening is counterproductive and unjustified, I feel like Iām slowly getting through to her.
Iāve been stressing out non-stop since the beginning of it all, I still canāt get food down my throat without struggle. My anxiety spikes if I stop scrolling news on twitter for even 5 minutes.Ā Iām too broke to leave the country and all my friends are broke too. One is gonna try to leave and settle in Armenia, but idk if sheāll be able to.
Iām already mentally prepared to face legal troubles for writing many angry pro-peace tweets. Iām prepared to starve to death or die from a nuclear explosion. However, I promise to do my best to survive. I wanna apologize to Ukrainians for not being able to prevent or stop whatās happening, and to the people of the Donbass region for not even realizing how fucked up the situation was in 2014.Ā
Iām signing petitions, writing letters, spreading info on twitter, showing people mental support as much as I can but it doesnāt feel like enough. I also translated a thread by a Russian journalist into English, itās a tutorial on how to fact-check info, because thereās a lot of misinformation floating around (itās a pinned tweet on my account @/Drak0nishe). Btw it had some tweets mysteriously disappear at some point, so I had to repost them with slightly different wording.
If you want to help Ukrainians, google the charity links on your own, Iām not allowed to post them, treason is a scary sentence.
Thank you for reading. I wish you all a long, healthy and peaceful life.
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