Fight against “internal enemies”: War fuels Russia’s informers

Alexej and Oksana Vesselov are among the first Russians to be hit by the new law on “discrediting” their own army. On a March day in 2022, the couple are sitting in the dining room of a sanatorium in the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria, talking about their relatives. A few weeks earlier, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, and now Oksana Vesselova is worried about her 87-year-old mother, who lives in Kiev.

Alexej Wesselow replies that these fights shouldn’t actually happen at all – and that’s when the trouble for the two of them takes its course: a woman sitting next to the table overhears the words, alerts the security of the convalescent home, and the Wesselows are arrested. They were later released, but a court sentenced Alexei to a fine of 30,000 rubles (around 355 euros).

Putin’s war of aggression has brought death, destruction and immense suffering to the neighboring country. But he also left a big mark in Russia itself. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the world’s largest country by area to protest the invasion or fear of being drafted into the army. Meanwhile, the war critics who stayed live increasingly dangerous lives. Because within Russian society, the war fuels a sinister practice: informerism.

Almost 145,000 complaints in the first half of 2022

In the first half of 2022, the Russian supervisory authority Roskomnadzor registered almost 145,000 complaints from citizens – an increase of 25 percent compared to the same period last year. Although only a fraction of them are actually convicted, many are afraid. After all, since the beginning of the war there has been a whole series of new laws that can be interpreted relatively freely – above all the dreaded law on the disparagement of Russia’s armed forces. In the worst case, you face 15 years in a prison camp.

Betraying fellow citizens to the authorities for base reasons has a long and tragic tradition in Russia. For example, the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (1927-1953) went down in history books for veritable waves of denunciations, among other things. Several million people fell victim to his state terror and the unprecedented purges.

The denouncer, on the other hand, kills two birds with one stone when in doubt. Or – as the proverb means literally translated from Russian – kills two rabbits at once: he fulfills a supposedly patriotic duty and, if necessary, also gets rid of an unwelcome fellow human being. And so it is hardly surprising that the current cases often occur in a close private or professional environment.

Even the Kremlin doesn’t seem too happy about the mood

In the city of Penza, south-east of Moscow, for example, an English teacher has been sentenced to five years’ probation after students ratted on her for making statements critical of the war. In St. Petersburg, residents call the police because they are disturbed by their neighbor who is listening to loud Ukrainian music in the car. The man has to pay the equivalent of more than 350 euros in fines. In Moscow, an eighth grader is reported by the mother of a classmate for crushing a Russian paper flag. Also in Moscow, after a dispute, a woman ratted out her own son to the authorities, who until then had successfully hid from being drafted into the army.

Even the Kremlin seems uneasy about the force with which spying and treason have become fashionable again. “As for denunciations, it was always, and still is, and I hope will remain, a disgusting thing to do,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said recently when asked by journalists that his compatriots had formally come forward with allegations overwhelm

But it is questionable whether the stone, once it has started rolling, can be stopped so quickly. The more repressive the state apparatus is against critics and dissenters, the more the Russians loyal to the Kremlin get the impression that there is also an enemy inside – and that their help is needed to fight it, historian Ilya Utechin tells the critical television station “Nastoyashcheye Vremya”. .

The phenomenon of the full-time informer

“There is an idea that we are surrounded by enemies, that we have a ‘fifth column’ that needs to be tracked down, and that the social activity of non-indifferent citizens is an important tool,” says the expert.

And where a “fifth column” – that is, an internal enemy – is suspected, many a patriot no longer wants to rely on neighborhood spying. Regular full-time informers have long since emerged – such as the political activist Vitaly Borodin, who specializes in complaints against celebrities. Borodin has already reported pop diva Alla Pugacheva, as well as singer Valeri Meladze and actress Liya Achejakova.

He has asked the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate the lead singer of the band “Noschnye Snaypery”, Diana Arbenina, and also the actor Danil Kozlovsky. Borodin accuses some stars of allegedly financing the Ukrainian military, and almost all of them discrediting the Russian army.

For those who are still in Russia, it is almost secondary whether the judiciary sees it the same way and fines them or not. Because some of their concerts have already been cancelled, guest roles have ended, contracts have been terminated prematurely. To be suspected of “army discrediting” in a warring Russia is, in a way, judgment enough.