Catch the eye of Russia’s security services these days and you risk everything, including your life. As Alexander Demidenko, a 61-year-old teacher and pacifist, discovered in April.
He died in pre-trial detention after being detained by Chechen forces near the Ukrainian border. According to independent media reports, Demidenko helped Ukrainian refugees return home, hosted them at his home, and drove them to the border, part of a large network of Russians helping those seeking to return home.
As many as 900 people stayed in his house, some of whom lived with the volunteer and his wife for weeks. Demidenko often helped with medicine and money. Those he aided are still grateful for his assistance. Most describe a profoundly moral man who simply sought to help those in terrible circumstances and who had no links to the Ukrainian authorities.
But he fell victim anyway. His arrest seems linked to a local conflict with guards (Demidenko had criticized some for demanding bribes from refugees and the conditions for Ukrainians waiting in line at the border crossing.)
In the fall, the volunteer was accused of illegal arms trafficking. Everyone who knew Alexander considers the case to have been fabricated, especially since he was severely tortured in pre-trial detention. The authorities officially declared his death a suicide, but Demidenko’s son doubts that his father would have taken his own life. A day before his death, the volunteer learned that he was also being investigated for treason.
In such cases of Alice Through the Looking Glass justice is becoming ever-more common. Over the past two years, lengthy prison terms for any, even the most moderate, criticism of the war have become commonplace. Now the state is moving against those who focus exclusively on refugees. While it is known Demidenko was anti-war, he was no campaigner. As eyewitnesses noted, he even managed to win over officers of the FSB border service.
The visible exchange of good and evil in Putin’s Russia has now become quite banal. From the first days of the full-scale war, aggression was called defense, war was called peace, killings were called heroism, and so on. Most Russians quickly adapted to such substitutions to justify this “distant” foreign policy or simply made what they could of the opportunities it presented — for example, attempts to profit from the war.
This upside-down morality applies not only to attitudes towards war and politics. It has extended to include the everyday life of Russian citizens and their engagement with the state over law enforcement.
Now, one can be classified as a supposed enemy of the state or the most innocent and socially beneficial activities — from helping refugees to any regional initiative in which the watchful authorities may see “separatist” or “extremist” tendencies.
As human rights activists note, it is precisely to combat such initiatives that the state went so far as to ban the “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement,” an organization that does not exist.
At the same time, many real criminal offenses go unpunished, or criminals receive ridiculously light sentences. As independent journalists have discovered, participation in the war not only exempts soldiers and former servicemen from liability for minor or moderate offenses in accordance with the law adopted last summer but, in practice, also applies to serious crimes.
Analysis of relevant verdicts has shown that those returning from the front lines receive the most lenient sentences, often suspended, for everything from murder to robbery, and other acts of violence.
For example, suspended sentences are often given in cases of drug distribution or serious bodily harm, whereas ordinary people, not involved in the war invariably receive prison sentences for the same crimes. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that those returning from the front lines often had previous convictions; however, participation in the war is considered to expunge their prior convictions, and therefore new cases are not treated as recidivism.
Ex-convicts not only escape punishment but also become characters in patriotic comics widely distributed to schools. Journalists found that among the heroes of the comics, developed on the order of the Znaniye society, which is supervised by the President’s Administration, is Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov, who has been sanctioned by the US for involvement in war crimes in Bucha. In the comics, Omurbekov is portrayed as a hero and an ideal Russian officer.
At the same time, any attempts to discuss the truth about the crimes of Russian military personnel lead to criminal liability. It is telling that in the past two years, 10 servicemen have been convicted for “faking” information about the army. Most often, conversations with fellow soldiers were the pretext for arrest. At least one of the accused, Colonel Valery Kotovich of the National Guard, received a real sentence — six years in prison.
However, concealing these men’s crimes under the threat of reprisals cannot hide society’s awareness. For example, residents of Buryatia complained to journalists that they face harassment from drunken veterans and are afraid to walk the streets, fearing rape or murder.
They know that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the state will side with the criminal and may even openly persecute the victim — some have become defendants in criminal cases for “discrediting” servicemen.
Putin’s Russia has become a fully-fledged criminal state, where wrongdoers receive state-sanctioned immunity. For the ordinary citizen, seeking to ignore the war and continue their daily lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult to turn away from the consequences.
Kseniya Kirillova is an analyst focused on Russian society, mentality, propaganda, and foreign policy. The author of numerous articles for CEPA and the Jamestown Foundation, she has also written for the Atlantic Council, Stratfor, and others.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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