Key bits of info here:<p>> Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting text and video messages on his social media channels accusing Russian soldiers of committing crimes in Ukraine. Prosecutors dismissed Glukhovsky's allegations as fake.<p>> Fortunately for Glukhovsky, he is not actually in Russia, and was sentenced in absentia. His current whereabouts are unknown.<p>Thankfully he isn't anywhere to be found, hopefully he made it to a safe country.
"Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting text and video messages on his social media channels accusing Russian soldiers of committing crimes in Ukraine."<p>He literally posted a video of Russian soldiers committing crimes in Ukraine. I love the word play here. "Accusing."<p>"How dare you accuse me of murdering that man by showing everyone a video of me murdering that man !? I am taking you to court for slander!"
"for criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine"<p>IMO that context deserves to be in the title, as it was in the original headline. I don't quite understand why it was left off when posted here.
As someone who remembers well the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, and lived in Russia for a period during the tumultuous 90s, it's really sad to me how the hope of that era (despite the fact that it could easily be argued that what happened in the 90s really set the stage for today's government in Russia) has devolved into the autocratic dystopia that is present day Russia (and China, for that matter).<p>Sometimes I can't decide if Gen X in the US was the luckiest or unluckiest generation. On one handed we got to spend our teens and 20s during the 90s, one of the most hopeful/optimistic periods in human history (fall of the Iron Curtain, US budget surpluses, rise of the Internet), but on the other hand we got to see it all reverse in a scant 20 years: liberal democracy teetering across the globe, climate change not being some far off thing but an immediate concern, unimaginable wealth inequality, the rise of technology as a force used to destroy our social fabric, and just generally feeling so many people be angry/scared/depressed all the time. Hopefully "this too shall pass".<p>Edit: since many people seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying: yes, I know Russia was a complete, corrupt shit show in the 90s - I saw it first hand, and it was really, really sad. What I meant is that there <i>was</i> a ton of hope by many people (at least the Russians I knew/lived with in Moscow) when communism first fell that they would be able to transition to a successful democracy. Much of the sadness was that potential never came to fruition.
This is the reason why we can't do anything in Russia. The power here is trained to find the growth points of potential protest organizers and destroy them at the stage of origin. Recently, Navalny was tightened by measures in prison and extended his term. Any organizer of the rally is put on a pencil and special forces come to it and his relatives and knocks out the doors. The rest understand that jokes are bad. All social networks and Russian chats are now supervised by Putin's close associates. They have access to correspondence in chats and SMS and there are special algorithms that can find these points in the field. No jokes. You will be caught when you are still small and raped in prison if you continue to bend your line. Even Navalny, who was simply a tremendous popularity among young people in the late 10s, can no longer do anything with this.<p>What else to expect from the country of total repressions and terror in the past and the country in which power is privatized by oligarchs from the special services. The only achievement of Putin is his psychopathic ability to isolate and destroy people. Well, clearly working on psychology clinging to the vile historical past in which one of the relatives or relatives of friends could be in the frosty camps of the Far North (read at your leisure about USSR concentration camps). They don’t just do anything with this but on the contrary the Kremlin propagandists encourage not to be forgotten so that people do not relax and knew "their place". Any public protest in large cities now use face recognition alghorithms + phone location.<p>And for each oligarch there is a folder with crimes - otherwise you simply will not become an oligarch without gluing like in typical Italian movie about the mafia. To not jump from the boat. The exception is Oleg Tinkov - a kind of punk in Russian business.
Russia's sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss is worrisome. What can bring some hope for the future? I mean Russia is not going to become a western style democracy anytime soon, but some kind of normalization would be welcome. Maybe after the current generation of the KGB guard Putin/Patrushev/Bortnikov... retire? They're all in their 70s ...
Glukhovsky, as a creator of fictional universe a very pessimistic and dystopian should draw a clear line between reality and fiction. However, it seems like he is strongly attracted to his fantasies and truly desires for Russia to become a manifestation of his fictionalized works. It's either that, or he is being financially incentivized as an anti-Russian propaganda tool.
Cue the "America bad" crowd on how Russia is great.<p>> US is no better than Russia. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37113866">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37113866</a>
this is a reblog of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-navalny-court-dmitry-glukhovsky-4d35046224f7f0f2cba076bb1544fe4a" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-navalny-court-dm...</a>