Inside Russia’s Crackdown on Dissent

[0] From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is the Daily.

[1] Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin made it a crime to oppose the war in public.

[2] And since then, it's waged a relentless campaign of repression, putting Russian citizens in jail for offenses as small as holding a poster or sharing a news article on social media.

[3] My colleague Valerie Hopkins has been reporting inside Russia on those who continue to speak out, despite the risks, and explains why their government is so determined to silence them.

[4] It's Tuesday, April 11th.

[5] Valerie, tell me about this reporting you've been doing about dissent in Russia.

[6] Well, as we've discussed before on the show, Sabrina, I've been trying to understand how Russians really view this war.

[7] We know there's a sizable group that fully and completely support the war.

[8] And the images that we see quite often in the West and in Western media are of people enthusiastically supporting the war, clapping for Putin, waving flags of the rallies, and sending their boys off to fight with cheering.

[9] But actually, you know, being on the ground in Russia, you can slowly find a different person.

[10] emerging.

[11] And what is that picture?

[12] Traveling around Russia the past six months, I've been actually surprised by how many people tell me that they hate this war, including many who, once they find out I'm a foreigner, usually in hushed tones or quietly, tell me, like, they really want me to know that most people that they know don't support this war, that not all Russians support this war, that they're ashamed and that they're really sad about what's going on, even if they feel powerless to do something about it.

[13] And actually, a recent poll even showed that 20 % of Russians openly admit to opposing the war.

[14] But Valerie, how should we think about that number?

[15] You know, we're not seeing mass protests on the street.

[16] The Russian government doesn't really seem to be under that much public pressure to change course in its war in Ukraine.

[17] Right.

[18] It's a lot of people, but they're not exactly visible.

[19] And that's because since the very beginning of the war, the Kremlin has made it very, very dangerous to speak out.

[20] As soon as the war started, the Kremlin immediately banned news that wasn't state -controlled.

[21] You could be arrested for saying the word war or holding it on a poster or writing it in an article.

[22] Instead, you're supposed to call it the quote -unquote special military operation.

[23] But it didn't stop there.

[24] There's been a year -long crackdown, and it feels like the stakes are constantly rising, and the circle of people being targeted is constantly widening.

[25] So for me, I've been really wanting to focus on this crackdown and the people who are being swept up in it.

[26] Because I actually think that if you look really closely, it tells you something about the nature of the Kremlin's power in Russia.

[27] How much it fears that a small group of open dissenters has the potential to grow into a much, much bigger one.

[28] So let's talk about those people, Valerie.

[29] Who are these Russians who are voicing their own?

[30] opposition to the war, despite these really dire repercussions.

[31] You know, they're actually all really different people.

[32] You might think there's like a profile, but there are sort of middle -aged guys in the provinces, young, hip, highly educated, college students.

[33] There's a lot.

[34] But one of the cases that really stuck out to me was a teenager named Alessia Krivsova.

[35] She lives in a town outside of Archangels, very close to the Arctic Circle.

[36] And for our first interview, actually, a colleague of mine went and met her in her home on a windy day in February.

[37] I connected over a call on the messaging app, Telegram.

[38] So, Alicia, say a little bit of you.

[39] So Alicia's 19.

[40] She's a student at University and Arts.

[41] her khankelsk, studying advertising in public relations.

[42] She's a vegan and a feminist, and she's living like a pretty normal life of a young person in Russia at the beginning of 2022.

[43] She didn't really consider herself to be an activist.

[44] I got the sense that, like, Most university students, she's kind of finding herself and figuring out what she cares about.

[45] But when the war in Ukraine started, she thought it was so incredibly senseless that she had to speak out.

[46] Like many young Russians, she talked to her family and friends about it.

[47] And most of them agreed with her that the war was wrong.

[48] And she starts doing some quiet acts of protest.

[49] A month into the war, she got this pretty intense tattoo of Vladimir Putin's face on the body of a spider with blood dripping down the fangs.

[50] Whoa.

[51] Yeah.

[52] Yeah, it's on her leg, and it has a caption that says, big brother's watching you.

[53] Hmm.

[54] But at this point, she's not speaking out publicly, right?

[55] No, no, you know, she has her social media channels, which she keeps private.

[56] But at a certain point, it became apparent for many Russians that this war was not going to end anytime soon.

[57] And last May, she actually decided to do something publicly for the first time.

[58] On May 9th, it's when Russia celebrates Victory Day, the end of World War II, and a really important time for Russia's national psyche, and probably one of the biggest national holidays in Russia.

[59] Right, the day that in the Kremlin's telling, the Soviet Union saved the world from fascism.

[60] Right, Sabrina.

[61] But this year, with a war going on in Ukraine, this year the holiday hit her differently.

[62] It made her so angry that Russians are celebrating peace while bombing people in Ukraine.

[63] So Alessia made some leaflets with her friends, and the message was, World War II veterans also live in Ukraine, and they are dying from shelling now.

[64] This war must end.

[65] So what happens?

[66] She and her friends make these leaflets.

[67] flits, what do they do?

[68] Well, she actually goes around the city, putting them up in different houses and residential complexes.

[69] And then they all went home.

[70] But the next day, the authorities came to her apartment.

[71] They'd seen the license plate of the car that she and her friend were used.

[72] as they drove around the city distributing these things.

[73] And who exactly came to her apartment?

[74] Like, was it the police?

[75] No, there were people from what's called the Center E, the Russian Center for Combating Extremism.

[76] What Alessia refers to as the political police.

[77] forced her to apologize personally to the armed forces of Russia on camera.

[78] They actually had a video camera with them that she had to talk on?

[79] Yes, and when I've seen them around Russia, they always have tiny little handheld cameras.

[80] And what happens to her?

[81] I mean, did they give her some kind of ticket or warning or something?

[82] So because this was her first offense, something that's known as administrative in Russian, she was fined, but it will stay on her record.

[83] And basically, that comes with a warning of if you do anything like this again, you will have a criminal trial and the penalties are much higher and include prison time.

[84] So this is really, I mean, it's a first warning, but it's a very important first warning, right?

[85] Because if you do something a second time, you could face prison.

[86] Exactly.

[87] And so naturally, she completely scales back her activity.

[88] She doesn't go to any protests or do anything else more publicly and limits herself to speaking out on Instagram occasionally.

[89] And feels pretty safe doing that because her account's private.

[90] But as it turns out, even that was a step too far.

[91] And how exactly is posting a private message to Instagram a violation?

[92] Well, fast forward a few months to December 26th, she stayed up all night preparing for finals.

[93] She finally goes to sleep around 7 a .m. Her mom leaves for work.

[94] And all of a sudden, she hears a voice in her apartment.

[95] She thinks maybe it's her grandma checking on her.

[96] But it's not.

[97] It's actually the Russian authorities.

[98] Wow.

[99] A swarm of men...