IN RUSSIA, ANCIENT MOVEMENT UNEDITED

Despite the repression, the opposition to the Moscow military offense in Ukraine has reached citizens so far apolitical. The signs of a deep tear in Russian society is multiplying.

By Benoît Vitkine (Moscow, correspondent) Published today at 05h40, updated at 12h59

This is an underground and deep movement of which it is still difficult to measure the width. Since their president, Vladimir Putin, decided to invade Ukraine, many Russians, for some perfectly apolitical, share their shock or opposition.

Many understood, from the start of the war, Thursday, February 24th, that this decision was irreparable. Dmitri Mouratov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novaïa Gazeta and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, summed up this feeling of a vertiggin formula: “The future is dead,” said a journalist from the suffocated independent television channel Dojd by the emotion.

Since then, the signs of deep tear in the population has multiplied, among those who support the operation of “denazification”, such as Moscow calls, those who ignore everything or almost what is happening (Dojd, broadcast only on the Internet, is the only channel that shows images of the conflict and who collects testimonies in Kiev or Kharkiv) and those who say no.

Demonstrations are scattered and disorganized, so calling in this direction is risky, and they are particularly guarded by power. Four days since the offensive against Ukraine began, nearly 5,700 people have been arrested in rallies across Russia; the latter are more but less provided than those who accompanied the trigger War in Donbass, 2014

Strategy of bypass Icloud lock

The toughness is on: In Rostov-sur-le-Don, a Russian city near the Donbass border and the Sea of Azov, a young woman has been sentenced to eight days in prison for ‘disobedience to the police’ after she was standing alone in the street, a vec a banner white – an invisible slogan for an invisible war.

Many more are the ones who make their opinion of a simple post on social media: black background, Ukrainian flag, hashtags “No to war” or “I am ashamed.” Those who answer them “I have no shame” and proudly display the tricolor flag of Russia have at least as many. “No to war” graffiti have also been noticed in several Russian cities. Erased as fast as they were, in winter 2021, those supporting the opponent Alexei Navalny, are more today.

Flowers have also become a means of expression, a bypass strategy against which the police can’t – yet – anything. Hundreds of bouquets have been dropped off in front of the Ukrainian Embassy building in Moscow in recent days. Sunday, February 27, it is the improvised memorial of the murdered opponent Boris Nemtsov, at the foot of the Kremlin, that was seen blooming. Seven years earlier, on February 27, 2015, the former Deputy Prime Minister was shot down, already, on the ground of war in Ukraine, while he was documenting the involvement of the Russian Army, kept secret.

Those who came to pay homage to him think of war, like Lioudmila V. , 31 years old, wearing a scrub mask « NIET». “At the time, this murder [of Nemtsov] was an explicit message of terror,” the young woman said, while dropping two eyes. And so am I afraid, today, but I consider it a duty to say that I am against this war. “Despite the upcoming political hardness and the country’s isolation, that she judges “some”, she does not imagine, like many of her friends, leaving Russia.”

Multiplication of texts, stands, petitions

“Internal repression and external aggression are both sides of the same medal,” explains the opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza, a survivor of two poisoning. He shows himself optimistic, despite the relative passivity of his citizens: “Thousands of people are getting out, despite the threat of prison; that’s already a lot.” And then we know how, often, the “good little winning wars” end. “A discontinued parade at the beginning of the day, the flow of citizens gradually forms a compact crowd that clashes along the bridge where Boris Nemtsov was killed.”

Fraction also goes through multiplication of texts, tribunes and petitions. The most important, launched by the opponent Lev Schlossberg, brings together 700,000 signatures. Open letters, coming from all bodies of professions – lawyers, doctors, artists, scientists… – circulating too, canned most of the time on social media.

The texts are more or less viral, more or less careful too – many don’t even quote the president’s name. A large part, too, beyond calls not to allow the deaths of soldiers and civilians, translates to profound despair. Like that of Leonid Gozman, one of the veterans of the liberal opposition, who accompanies a photo of him posing in the street with a small “No to War” sign: “I don’t know if this kind of protest makes sense.” Why take risks ? I understand that our leader has gone very far in the stars and that neither sanctions nor our protests will stop him. But it’s too disgusting to sit and do nothing. We can at least tell our children, grandchildren, and especially ourselves, that we have not been silent. “

Athletes and show-business stars have also said their opposition to the war. Among them, the comedian Ivan Ourgant, who saw his show scheduled the same evening. At the highest of protests in favor of Alexei Navalny, dozens of people whose careers depend on television, cinema or public theatres, have thus disappeared and from the scene.

Business men’s dismissal

In the political world, the movement is limited. Nearly 300 local elected officials — out of tens of thousands — have signed a text against the war. The Communist MP of the Douma – the Lower Chamber of the Russian Parliament – Mikhaïl Matveev called for the end of the conflict, after having voted as a whole of his peers, a few days earlier, the recognition of the separatist republicans of Donbass. “The goal was to bring peace, not war,” he justified.

A diplomat also made “defection”. “On behalf of all Russians for the fact that we could not prevent this conflict,” said Oleg Anisimov, head of the Russian delegation at the UN climate conference.

Particularly watched, the reaction of the great oligarchs allows a very limited seperation to be perceived, even though, in this environment, the initial shock is important after the sanctions imposed by the Westerners. Ukrainian billionaire Mikhail Fridman carefully distanced himself by writing to his employees that war “can never be the answer.” Aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska has published a brief – and vague message on social media to call for ‘negotiations’.

https://www.lemonde.fr/…/ukraine-un-mouvement…

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LEMONDE.FR

En Russie, un mouvement antiguerre inédit

Malgré la répression, l’opposition à l’offensive militaire menée par Moscou en Ukraine atteint des citoyens jusqu’ici apolitiques. Les signes de profonds déchirements au sein de la société russe se multiplient.