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To: Broken_Clock who wrote (1394210)

3/11/2023 12:06:27 PM

From: Brumar89

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Mass Backstabbing Spree Over Putin’s War Sweeps Russia

Noor Ibrahim
Fri, March 10, 2023

Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS
Russian citizens are ratting each other out to authorities in droves for anti-war comments made in bars, beauty salons, and grocery stores in roughly a dozen cities across the country, according to a new report from the independent Russian news outlet Vrestka.

Legal filings obtained by the outlet from Moscow, Bryansk, Novosibirsk, and other cities indicate that citizens have been turned in for “violations” as minor as cracking a joke about the war, listening to Ukrainian music, or even just talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion in a public space.

Many of those jailed after being reported by other citizens were charged under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, a new law signed by Putin last year criminalizing “ public actions aimed at discrediting” Russian Armed Forces.

One Russian man from Bryansk, Mikhail Kolokolnikov, was reportedly fined and jailed for two days after a stranger called authorities on him for saying the phrase “Glory to Ukraine” at a bar on Jan. 15. In an interview with Vrestka, Kolokolnikov said that two officers stormed the bar shortly after he said the phrase to another man, demanding to know, “Who said ‘Glory to Ukraine’ here?”

“The other day, a rocket hit a house in Dnipro,” Kolokolnikov, who was born in Ukraine, told the outlet—explaining why he said the slogan in a public place. “And I used to walk past this house every day to the beach, along the Pobeda embankment. In short, I was still a little angry because of this.”

In another case, Chita resident Ivan Sleponogov was jailed after being accused of saying an anti-war slogan during an Easter church service last April, according to a legal complaint. Sleponogov had allegedly claimed that he was actually chanting “Glory to the guys who died in Ukraine!” in reference to Russian soldiers who were killed in combat, and the case was eventually dropped—after Sleponogov had spent 10 days in jail.

Other cases detailed in the Vrestka investigation include complaints made against Russian citizens for playing a Ukrainian song in the car while driving, drunkenly making pro-Ukrainian statements from a balcony, and criticizing the war in private conversations with friends at a coffee shop. The individuals who made the complaints allegedly include eavesdropping neighbors, coworkers, and janitors.

In many of the cases, according to the outlet, little to no evidence was provided by witnesses who reported the alleged violations.

In some court filings, however, the “anti-war” sentiments allegedly expressed by accused citizens are not so subtle. In Serpukhov, a city near Moscow, two Russian army veterans accused Yuri Nemtov of approaching them at a shopping mall last November with some choice words. “Well, invaders! Go there to die like meat!” he allegedly said.

https://news.yahoo.com/mass-backstabbing-spree-over-putin-205233989.html

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (1394210)

3/11/2023 12:08:53 PM

From: Brumar89

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Putin Dealt Double Blow as Two of His Closest Allies Turn on Him
BY GIULIA CARBONARO ON 3/10/23

Turkey and Hungary, whose leaders had been among the few in Europe to keep an open door to Moscow after the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, seem to be starting to turn their backs on Russia.

This month, the Turkish government, which mediated peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow last year, abruptly halted the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia, after having received several warnings from the European Union and the United States about these products helping Russia's war effort in Ukraine.

This week, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country will reassess its relationship with Russia. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February and the following sanctions imposed by the EU, Orbán has kept an ambivalent stance towards Moscow.

Orbán and his government were slow to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and repeatedly opposed the EU sanctions against Moscow and financial aid to Kyiv. As an energy crisis unfolded across Europe last year, Orbán consistently blamed higher costs on the sanctions imposed on Russia, calling for the EU to put an end to the measures.

L-R: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey and Hungary seem to be rethinking their Russia-friendly stances.LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/GETTY; ALEXEY DANICHEV/SPUTNIK/AFP/GETTY; ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTYLast month, Politico reported that Orbán told a group of foreign conservative figures that time was on Russia's side in the war in Ukraine, calling the war-torn country "the land of nobody" and openly questioning its sovereignty.

But the latest apparent change of direction for Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungary's Orbán shows that, as the war drags on for longer than anyone would have expected at its start, even Putin's closest allies in Europe are being forced to reconsider what's more convenient, strategically, for their countries.

Putin won't live to see Ukraine victory, Russia state TV fears
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Putin won't live to see Ukraine victory, Russia state TV fears

While Turkey kept a good balance last year between keeping its ties with Russia without completely angering Europe and the U.S., this position now seems increasingly untenable. Turkey's defiant resistance to the punitive measures imposed by the U.S. and the EU on Russia threatened to cost the country's companies and banks to be punished for contravening sanctions, as Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury Department's top sanctions official, made clear during meetings in Ankara and Istanbul last month.

Orbán too has until now played both sides, avoiding being straight-out anti-Ukrainian to keep enjoying the benefits of its EU and NATO membership while refusing to stop developing its ties with Moscow and abandoning its Russia-friendly stance.

But Orbán, talking about the need to reassess Hungary's relationship with Russia during an economic forum in Budapest on Thursday, didn't suggest cutting ties with Moscow completely.

"I understand the need to rebuild Russian-European relations after the war, but it's far from realistic," Orbán said. "That is why Hungary's foreign and economic policy must carefully reflect on the type of relationship we can establish and maintain with Russia in the next 10-15 years."

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-dealt-double-blow-two-closest-allies-turn-him-1786947