A Moscow court has abolished one of Russia’s oldest rights groups. Russian prosecutors banned the work of a group of journalists in exile, labeling them an “undesirable organization”.
And on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin used Holocaust Memorial Day to repeat false claims that justified the invasion of Ukraine as his government used state levers to suppress and control independent voices like the Russians are running the war see.
The Kremlin’s renewed push to quell dissent this week comes as the war nears the end of its first year, with Western officials more than estimating 100,000 casualties on each side. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a bitter war of attrition in eastern Ukraine and are looking to rebuild their forces before the spring, when both are likely to attempt a significant offensive.
Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians in 24 hours in eastern Ukraine, the scene of the most intense fighting in recent months, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
“The enemy is deliberately destroying our cities and towns,” regional military governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. “Civilians not involved in protecting and operating critical infrastructure in the region should be evacuated.”
But according to the Russian government’s plan, the Russian public would know little about these losses, the devastation caused by Russian missile attacks or the waves of men sent into frontal attacks by Russian commanders. Since the war began, the Kremlin has continually crushed Russia’s independent media and coerced organizations that had survived decades under Mr Putin out of the countryand cut access to Facebook, the BBC and other news sources.
On Thursday, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office labeled Meduza, a popular independent news site, as an “undesirable organization,” meaning those who speak to its staff, “like” its content, or even share its articles could risk prosecution.
The site’s activities “pose a threat to the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation,” according to the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
The decision could limit Latvia-based Meduza journalists’ ability to speak to people in Russia, who now have reason to fear retribution. But the journalists insisted they would not be swayed, saying in a expression: “We will find ways to act in these new conditions. We will continue to share events with our readers, millions of whom are still in Russia.”
The European Union condemned the decision, calling it “another serious politically motivated attack on media freedom”. It also denounced the move by a Moscow city authority to terminate the leases the Sakharov center, a museum dedicated to the history of Soviet abuse.
The two cases were shared by the EU diplomatic service in a expressionmarked “a dark day for Russian civil society and a new low in the Kremlin’s bulldozerization of the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.”
But these were just two of several actions in this direction by the Russian authorities this week. A Moscow City Court ordered the closure of the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the country’s oldest human rights groups, in a decision condemned by the UN Human Rights Office. The verdict “is another blow to human rights and the civil society space in the country” said Marta Hurtado, a spokeswoman for the bureau.
Criminal proceedings have also been opened against Pyotr Verzilov, the publisher of the independent website Mediazona said on Thursday, adding that he was accused of “spreading untruths about the Russian army”. Mr Verzilov, who left Russia before the war, said the charges stemmed from his posts Bucha, Ukrainewhere journalists and investigators found evidence of atrocities by Russian forces.
And Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Internet regulator, restricted access to the CIA and FBI websites the state news agency Tass, stating that no reason was given for blocking the pages.
In the absence of independent news organizations, many Russians rely on television, where popular channels are either state-owned or state-owned business people on good terms with the Kremlin, and all of them are promoting Mr. Putin’s government and his war. Emails leaked last year by Russia’s largest state media outlet showed that Russia’s military and main security service, the FSB, at times directed and advised employees of the state media portray the invasion in a positive light.
Correspondents, presenters and TV presenters have had time for months repeated Mr Putin’s claim that one aim of the invasion was to “denazify” Ukraine. Mr Putin has falsely claimed that Ukraine’s leadership is dominated by “neo-Nazi” officials – despite Ukraine’s democratically elected president being Jewish – and has long characterized the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 as a fascist coup.
In Remarks Speaking on the commemoration, Mr Putin said that “forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies” and then linked the history of the Holocaust to the war in Ukraine. He accused “neo-Nazis in Ukraine” of crimes against civilians and “ethnic cleansing” and said Russian soldiers were there to fight “this evil in particular”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine on his own memorial day messagealso invoked the horrors of the Holocaust in connection with the war, although he did not address Russia or Mr Putin directly.
“Today we remember the determination of the global coalition that stopped Nazism,” said Zelenskyy, “and today we repeat it even more strongly than before: never again hate, never again indifference.”
Other Ukrainian government officials have been more direct. Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to the president, said the tragedy of the Holocaust “should have served as a warning to prevent new crimes against humanity.”
“But today, in the middle of Europe, there is a genocide against the Ukrainians,” he said wrote on Twitter. “We will not forgive or forget anything.”
Ivan Nekhepurenko, Kassandra Vinograd, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Carly Olsonand Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
