We have long been inside his endless Telluria, living within his self-fulfilling prophecy, tumbling inside the Machine of Violence he described. And it cannot be said that we were not warned; Russian literature has never before had such a clear prediction over the past decades leading up to the catastrophe.

#VladimirSorokin #war #dictatorship #Dostoevsky #catastrophe #literature #aftertheUSSR #postmodernism #Russia #thick #totalitarianism

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The forested Sandarmokh tract seems to threaten the Russian authorities by its very existence. From their point of view, since people do not forget about it, their memory must be reformatted—by any means and at any cost.

#thecaseofYuriDmitriev #dictatorship #historicalmemory #Karelia #NKVD #Putin #repressions #Sandarmokh #theUSSR #Stalin #FSB

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A hallmark of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes is a lack of taste and complete insensitivity to what happens to people. Along with a passion for regulating everything, which extends into controlling everyday life relationships. Uniformity very often turns out ugly. But here’s the problem: the state has launched a reboot of neo-totalitarianism in a modernized and diverse society.

#ValentinaMatvienko #ValentinaTereshkova #power #state #children #dictatorship #fashion #society #postmodernism #Parents #family #school

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In August 1975, in Helsinki, 35 countries from Europe and North America, from the USSR and the USA to Malta and Luxembourg, signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). This treaty became the pinnacle of the détente period (a policy of easing international tensions), when the West and the Soviet bloc tried to implement the principle of «peaceful coexistence» at least on one continent.

#Brezhnev #East #democracy #dictatorship #diplomacy #west #History #aftertheUSSR #humanrightsactivists #Putin #Russia #Sakharov #HelsinkiAccords

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Since early 2022, thousands of opponents of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have tried to seek asylum in the US — only to face tightening immigration policies. With Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, those who hadn’t secured legal status in previous years found themselves in direct danger. Since early 2025, US authorities have deported two activists to Russia — Vladimir Mashinin and Leonid Melekhin. The first managed to escape; the second was placed in pre-trial detention last week for two months due to anti-war statements made in previous years. Julia Nikolaeva, a US immigration lawyer of Russian origin practicing in San Francisco for 15 years, confirms that the situation for asylum seekers in the States has significantly worsened, as has the overall attitude of authorities toward foreigners. We spoke with her about this.

#America #deportation #dictatorship #DonaldTrump #interview #personalexperience #society #petition #politicalasylum #protests #repressions #Russia #USA #Emigration

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Last week, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared the non-existent «International Satanists Movement» extremist. It's surprising that a phenomenon of Western pop culture like satanism still causes moral panic among Russian authorities.

#America #VladimirPutin #authorities #East #TheStateDuma #democracy #dictatorship #west #moralpanic #popculture #religion #RonaldReagan #Russia #Satanism #Christianity

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In recent years, some in the Russian public have been strongly tempted to engage in victim-blaming regarding the events of 1939-1940. The idea goes that the Baltic peoples chose their own fate: they signed the treaties, let the Red Army in, and voted for pro-Soviet candidates in elections. Who else can they blame for this but their own short-sighted and cowardly governments? Indeed, formally the Stalinist regime at the time did nothing that the authorities of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia did not allow. But in reality, the Soviet leadership fully understood the true meaning of these documents and procedures.

#Baltics #East #WorldWarII #dictatorship #west #historicalmemory #History #Latvia #Lithuania #MolotovRibbentropPact #Poland #repressions #theUSSR #Stalinism #Estonia

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«There is no crime I wouldn’t commit to realize myself,» Valery Gergiev liked to repeat the words of his idol, Herbert von Karajan. But the renowned German conductor, who became the face of the Third Reich for self-realization, never stooped to shoddy work. That can no longer be said about Gergiev.

#zpatriotism #BolshoiTheatre #ValeryGergiev #WarinUkraine #HerbertvonKarajan #dictatorship #Canada #classicalmusic #Latvia #MariinskyTheatre #Netherlands #propaganda #protests #Putin #SergeyNovikov #SergeiProkofiev #Ukraine #JuliaNavalnaya

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Boris Akunin has been sentenced in absentia in Russia to 14 years, Dmitry Bykov declared wanted: two of the most important Russian writers have been subjected to exemplary criminal repressions. This is a milestone and another signal, as they say, for the entire intelligentsia. Although what signals are there, everything is already clear. Rather, this is a milestone for the repressive apparatus itself, which is worth noting.

#akulin #bulls #dictatorship #dissidents #intelligentsia #kgb #movie #literature #aftertheUSSR #Putin #repressions #series #Sovietpower

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In Russia, they are preparing to punish people for searching for uncensored materials on the internet — including using VPNs. For Belarusian citizens, this has long been an everyday reality: for several years they have lived under a ban on access to independent information. In an interview with «Most,» Belarusian political scientist Artem Shraybman explains the difference between Russian and Belarusian censorship and what lessons from Belarusian digital resistance can be applied in Russia. He also discusses how the Lukashenko regime is evolving, what is happening with emigration, what to expect for political prisoners (including Maria Kolesnikova), and how the release of Sergey Tikhanovsky affects the Belarusian opposition in exile.

#AlexanderLukashenko #Belarus #Belarusianopposition #foreignpolicy #dictatorship #interview #KeithKellogg #personalitycult #MariaKolesnikova #massemigration #Minsk #independentmedia #politicalrepressions #protests #Russia #SergeiTikhanovsky #securityforces #censorship

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By creating a cult around the image of the past, tries to justify his own authoritarian rule, great-power chauvinism, and external aggression. However, at some point, the reincarnation of Stalinism began to turn against its creators, taking on an oppositional tone.

#VladimirPutin #dictatorship #JosephStalin #CommunistParty #corruption #Crimea #LevadaCenter #propaganda #PutinandStalin #Russia #socialjustice #sociology

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Now, with hostilities between the two states at their peak and the United States coming to Israel’s aid, it is highly likely that the chances of an uprising in Iran are slim. However, if the Iranian regime is defeated, a popular explosion of outrage will most likely indeed overthrow it. Moreover, this will happen largely for the same reasons that led to the collapse of the USSR.‍

#AitollahKhomeini #whiterevolution #bushranger #VladimirPutin #dictatorship #reportonthedead #greenrevolution #israeliiranianwar #Iran #IslamicRevolution #IslamicRevolutionaryGuardCorps #Kurdistan #mahsaamini #mohammedrezapahlavi #nationalrevolutions #protests20222023 #protestsiniran #reformistmovements #savak #SovietUnion

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The question of the US entering Israel’s war with Iran remains the main topic on the agenda today. On June 12, the White House officially stated that the United States «is taking a defensive stance» and does not plan to intervene in the fighting for now. Meanwhile, American President Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that both sides «make a deal,» and recently insisted on Israel’s unconditional surrender. ‍

#AliKhamenei #America #Americanmedia #Analytics #MiddleEast #dictatorship #DmitryMedvedev #DonaldTrump #Israel #Iraq #Iran #Kremlin #Moscow #oil #PeteHegseth #Russia #USA #Ukraine #IDF

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In 2023, when the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared the non-existent «International LGBT Social Movement» an extremist organization, the Russian queer community finally went underground. For distributing any content mentioning LGBT, you can receive a hefty fine or even a criminal case. Stores stopped selling books with stories about same-sex love, online cinemas are deleting series and films with queer characters, and the social network VKontakte blocks search queries about LGBT. Queer people who agreed to talk about ways to preserve their identity under these conditions were forced to hide even for phone interviews—in friends’ apartments, or even in the forest.‍

#state #democracy #dictatorship #queer #LGBT #personalexperience #politicalrepressions #humanrights #Russia #sex

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American politician and diplomat Henry Kissinger would have turned 102 today (considering he lived to 100, this is quite a realistic assumption). His name is firmly associated with the concepts of «shuttle diplomacy» and Realpolitik. For his efforts to end the Vietnam War in 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite being one of the architects of U.S. foreign policy aimed against the USSR during the Cold War, he later often spoke sympathetically about Russia, justified its foreign policy actions, and met with. Kissinger’s ideological legacy is especially interesting in light of the Russia-Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s attempts to stop it.

#Analytics #VladimirZelensky #VladimirPutin #war #WorldEconomicForum #HenryKissinger #democracy #JoeBiden #dictatorship #diplomacy #DonaldTrump #China #Russia #SovietUnion #SteveBannon #Ukraine

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In Soviet times, the Russian emigration was an important base for recruiting foreign agents, but after the collapse of the USSR, its numbers grew many times over – opening up inexhaustible opportunities for Russian intelligence services. The network of Russian influence agents and simple spy centers is visibly becoming denser

#agents #Analytics #antiRussiansanctions #VyacheslavNikonov #Gru #dictatorship #YevgenyPrimakov #Study #kgb #NataliaKardash #aftertheUSSR #legalfund #propaganda #Russianspecialservices #Rossotrudnichestvo #Russianworld #SVR #SergeyLavrov #compatriots #FSB

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Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are scheduled for May 15 in Istanbul, actively promoted by US President Donald Trump. According to political scientist and geographer Dmitry Oreshkin (the Russian Ministry of Justice considers him a foreign agent), important matters that have already changed the course of events around the war remain in the shadows of these talks. ‍

#democracy #dictatorship #interview #war

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At the end of February 2025, journalist and film critic Ekaterina Barabash was detained in Moscow. For social media posts about the war in Ukraine, the Russian Investigative Committee accused her of spreading «fakes» about the Russian army out of hatred. In Russia, this charge carries a prison sentence of five to ten years. Fortunately, Ekaterina managed to escape from house arrest and reach Europe. Today, we can finally tell the story of how it happened.

#WarinUkraine #dictatorship #lifeinRussia #KaterinaBarabash #personalexperience #repressions

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