Human rights in Russia: ‘Putin needed to destroy Russian society before launching war’

The Ukrainian war and the situation of human rights in Russia. That was the central axis of a press conference given this Thursday in Buenos Aires by two Russian journalists and a member of Memorial, the Russian NGO that in 2022 was one of the three to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Invited to Argentina by the European Union, the delegation was headed by Pavel Andreyev, a member of Memorial’s board of directors. Created in the late 1980s with the intention of denouncing the crimes of Stalinism, Memorial is the oldest human rights organization in Russia.

In addition to investigating the Soviet past, the NGO has also taken up the defense of human rights today. Currently, in addition to being an active opponent against the war in Ukraine, he fights for the freedom of expression of opponents of Putin such as Alexei Navalny.

Pavel Andreyev, member of the board of directors of the NGO Memorial, who was in Argentina invited by the European Union.

“We believe that the Nobel that they gave us emphasizes the importance that civil society can have, even in times of war, when it comes to defending human rights. We want to take advantage of our visit to Argentina to meet with journalists and civil organizations to discuss these issues,” Andreyev said in his presentation, before lamenting that Belarusian lawyer Ales Bialiatski, who received the Nobel Prize together with Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties in 2022, recently received a 10-year prison sentence.

Along with Andreyev were also two journalists: Kirill Martynov and Konstantin Eggert. Martynov is the Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta Europa, the Russian outlet whose publishing license was revoked by the Kremlin for its critical coverage of the war and had to add the word “Europe” to its name and establish itself abroad.

Born in 1993 (one of its initial investors was Mikhail Gorbachev), it is the oldest independent Russian media. Before Novaya Gazeta was banned by the Kremlin, its Editor-in-Chief, Dimitri Muratov, was himself one of those who received the Nobel Prize in 2021.

In his presentation, Martynov stressed how difficult journalism has become in Russia. “Our journalists in Russia are forced to work anonymously due to the great risks they run. We publish this information from abroad to avoid censorship since it may be the only way Russians can discuss what is happening in their country,” he explained.

Eggert, for his part, is a journalist for the German station Deutsche Welle (DW) and a political analyst.

Both Andreyev, the only one of the three who still lives in Russia, and Eggert and Martynov, who are currently based in Latvia, agreed that political repression and fear have grown significantly since the start of the war.

Kirill Martynov, Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta Europa, was in Buenos Aires at the invitation of the European Union.

To illustrate the picture of the situation, Eggert recounted a singular episode: a man in the Russian city of Tula faces a possible sentence of 10 years in prison after his 8-year-old daughter was denounced by her teacher for drawing a flag of Ukraine and ask for peace.

“The Russian population is moved by this. It is a war that we never expect to experience. And we are here because we want to ask for the solidarity of the Argentine people, who know a lot about dictatorships and democracy,” Eggert said.

The Russian population and the war

Asked how much real support there is within Russia for the war and Putin, Andreyev said it is impossible to believe any government-sponsored poll, since the public knows they can be arrested or fined for issuing opinions contrary to the official narrative.

According to these polls, between 60 and 80% of the population is in favor of Russian actions, but he stressed that it is necessary to take into account that the population only receives information provided by the government.

Andreyev claimed that up to a million people are estimated to have fled Russia. Those who still remain in the country must live with a situation of mistrust and a growing polarization structured around opinions on the war. A “crack” that has led to thousands of destroyed families, where fathers, children and brothers are increasingly distanced due to their visions of what is happening in Ukraine.

Political repression in Putin’s Russia began to escalate in the years leading up to the war in Ukraine. Photo: EFE

“This has affected all families. A few days ago I was in a restaurant and overheard a group of four women talking about how they didn’t trust the son of one of their friends. The level of stress in Russian society has grown exponentially,” explained Andreyev, who in turn stressed that the sanctions imposed by the West have greatly affected small Russian merchants, many of whom have left the country.

On the issue of civil society support, Eggert pointed to the millions of deaths in the last 100 years, from World War I and World War II to Stalin’s massacres, as evidence that Russian society “is used to violence.” .

“It is a society that seeks to stay away from these issues. Not because they are an evil people, but because they are traumatized. Discounting that the Ukrainian people are the ones who are suffering the most from the consequences of the conflict, this is also a tragedy of the war”, the journalist completed.

One before and one after

Along with the war, the other central issue was the government of Vladimir Putin and the growth of authoritarianism and repression. Asked by Clarín about what he believes was the turning point from which the political situation began to worsen in Russia, Martynov pointed to a precise moment.

For Martyrov, the 2018 World Cup was the last opportunity for Russia to show itself as “a country open to the world.” Photo: AP

“The 2018 World Cup was perhaps the last opportunity for Russia to show itself as a country open to all,” the journalist explained. From there, a slow but steady process of degradation of the Russian political sphere began.

Just two years later, Putin modified the constitution in such a way that he could be re-elected until 2036. His current term ends next year, but after that he can be re-elected for two more than 6 years each.

And while the persecution of political opposition has occurred in the past (Martynov cited the 2015 assassination of Boris Nemstov, a central figure in Putin’s opposition), the situation has ceased to be a side issue and has become a an explicit theme.

“Starting in 2020, with the assassination attempt on Navalny, this has already become a common practice,” added Martynov, who also noted that, for the Russian government, he himself is considered a “foreign agent.”

Although the journalist stressed that this has no legal definition (he states, for example, that “there is no way to show that one is not a ‘foreign agent'”), the government requires him to indicate this status every time he publishes something. in social networks. At the same time, he is obliged to deliver his financial movements to the Ministry of Justice. Not doing so means he can risk going under pressure.

“Everything is part of a campaign to divide society. Not at the Soviet level, but something we hadn’t seen before. Looking back, I think it was all a kind of preparation for the war in the Ukraine. Putin had to destroy Russian society before he could undertake the invasion,” he detailed.

“No one in Russia wanted this war. As long as it was possible, people came out to protest and emphasize that they were not in favor of the aggression. Until 10 years ago, no one believed that this type of aggression against a neighbor was possible, ”he completed.

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