Thousands of proceedings are being conducted in Russia for “discrediting” the army or opposition to the war. They generally start with reporting whistleblowers. DW asked experts why people denounce others, including close ones.
A father reports a daughter who opposes the war in Ukraine. A man reports a colleague after an argument at work about the war, and a friend reports a man because he saw a post on a social network that he thought mocked the “Z” symbol, which is used in Russia to glorify the war against Ukraine.
All three cases, which DW reported on earlier, ended with a police investigation, but no court proceedings were initiated.
Kiril (32), an IT expert from Moscow who opposes the war and the policies of Vladimir Putin, went through a similar experience. He says he has a relative who is “in love” with Putin and who reported Kirill’s posts and their private correspondence. He had to be interviewed by the police.
– That’s when I found out that it’s not the first time that relatives complain about people who oppose the war – Kiril told DW and adds:
The police officers admitted that they themselves were afraid that they might be sent to Ukraine. In the end they let me go. But now I make my posts on social networks visible only to friends. Since then, it’s all kind of creepy to me.
There are more and more examples in Russia when denunciation leads to more severe consequences. In one of the famous cases, an elderly lady complained that she saw anti-war slogans on the prices in a supermarket in Saint Petersburg. Because of this, artist and activist Saša Skočilenko ended up in pre-trial detention and faces ten years in prison.
Why do people need to report other citizens, friends, colleagues, and even their own children?
Various types of whistleblowers
Psychologist Marija Potudina sees them as a valve of sorts:
– In Russia, dissatisfaction has not been publicly expressed for a long time. Denouncing is a relatively safe means of releasing aggression, even though it is not targeted at an individual.
– This is how you can limit yourself from others, protect your habitus from alternative views, establish order, have control, and punish evil people whom the state considers traitors – adds Potudina to DW. He says that the core of denunciation is to have the power to decide the fate of others, and thus compensate for one’s own powerlessness. The whistleblower becomes an assistant to a powerful state.
It’s not just limited to anonymous people. For example, blogger Gaspar Avakjan reported his favorite actor and comedian Maksim Galkin because he spoke against the war. Currently, Russian investigators are verifying the allegations. After the start of the war, Galkin emigrated to Israel.
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– It is also denounced in order to gain a material benefit, out of petty revenge or the drive for self-preservation. In the Soviet Union, there was a law according to which non-reporting was punishable – anthropologist Aleksandra Arkhipova tells us.
– However, the most difficult reason for denouncing is ideological. It seems to her that there is more and more of that in Russia. It is about reporting a political offense about which there is no consensus in society, but for which someone can be severely punished – she continues.
Thousands of proceedings before the courts
Since the beginning of March, more than two thousand procedures have been opened in Russia for “discrediting” the army. According to the data of activists fighting against political persecution within the framework of the “OVD-Info” project, fines of 35,000 rubles (about 620 euros) have been imposed on average in cases resolved so far.
Pavel Čikov from the human rights project “Agora” says that Russian courts decide about forty such cases a day. But, he says, there are also dozens of proceedings for “lies” about the war. There have been no verdicts yet, and the maximum threatened sentence is fifteen years in prison. And these procedures are generally initiated after alert citizens report.
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Historian Sergej Bondarenko from the “Memorial” organization – banned in Russia under the law on “foreign agents” – says that reporting today is more open than in Soviet times, when the proceedings were often silent and far from the public eye.
According to Bondarenko, whistleblowers often expect to improve their situation, settle scores with someone, or advance in the social ladder. “With threats and promises, the state puts people in a situation where they feel that denunciation is both permissible and desirable. They’re almost lured into it.”
Other interviewees of DW think the same. “The president’s speeches about national traitors encourage all kinds of denunciations,” says Potudina.
Escape from the truth
Arkhipova says that for many people in Russia, war does not exist – there is a dacha, yard, garden, children and grandchildren, but no war. “It is difficult to admit that you are a citizen of a country in whose name a crazy schizophrenic war is being waged. Because that would destroy any basis of loyalty to state power,” she says.
According to psychologist Potudina, it is also an expression of powerlessness that leads to denunciations. He asks, what can people actually do against war? “To go to the Kremlin with pitchforks? They wouldn’t get far. It is difficult to live with the knowledge that one’s own country is killing innocent people.”
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And that’s why many defend themselves against this knowledge. As Potudina says, therefore, the black and white division into “good” and “bad” Russians is wrong. He adds, people avoid obvious truths in order not to go crazy, reports Deutsche DW .
