Fridman, Dvorkovich – who else in the Russian elite dared to speak out against the war?
Photographer, TASS
Mikhail Fridman (left) and Arkady Dvorkovich
Billionaire Mikhail Fridman, who ended up in the court of the EU and Britain, cautiously opposes the war. More openly, former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. The arrival of a veiled anti-war statement can be found even in the words of TV presenter Ekaterina Andreeva. These are the reports of Vladimir Putin’s Russia security check that on March 16 is getting closer to freeing Russia from the “fifth column”.
“Yes, of course, they intend to supply such a fifth column, to national traitors, to those who earn money here, with us, live there, and “live” not even in the geographical sense of the word, but in their own way. thoughts, according to the conscious slave consciousness, “- said said Putin.
“But any people, and even more so the Russian people, will always be distinguished from true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like midges that accidentally flew into their mouths, spit them out on the panel. Solidarity, unity and readiness to respond to any challenges,” he added .
“Natural self-purification of society”. Putin about the “fifth column”
As early as March 5, the state VTsIOM, referring to its research, arguedthat 71% of Russians are “under a ban on the use of Russia’s special military syringe in Ukraine”, “every fifth is more likely not to support” – 21%, 8% of respondents found it difficult to answer.
Alexey Bessudnov, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at the University of Exeter, commenting on the data of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, in a conversation with the BBC, urges “to look carefully at the wording of the question.”
“VTsIOM asked a question in the wording: do you support the decision to set aside a special military laboratory for Russia in Ukraine? Assumes a neutral question, but it is not neutral – a sociologist. That would be a completely different question.”
Protests against the war in Russia. Video
Anti-war actions are taking place in Russia, the participants of which are massively detained. However, influential people who have so far maintained loyalty to the authorities or neutrality have so far not held direct views on Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Social networks with this full photo in support of the “special military operation” with the letter Z, even kindergarten students are participating in the action.
“To tell Putin something against the war is tantamount to murder”
Who is now opposed to the war? Billionaire Friedman, even before the sentencing meeting against his investment company LetterOne, which is quoted by the Financial Times, said that “this crisis will cost lives and harm nations, have been brothers for hundreds of years.”
Now in an interview with Bloomberg, he said saidwhat to expect from Putin and what to talk about the loss of water – this is a step that has happened. “The distance between Mr. Putin and anyone else is like the distance between Earth and space,” he explained. “To tell Putin something against the war, for someone else, would be tantamount to an incident.”
Friedman believes that the EU and Britain missed the mark by introducing membership against Russian billionaires, since they have no study on the country’s leadership. “I am in captivity. what a comparison with groups of Ukrainians”).
Who else from the billions remembered? Almost nobody.
But Oleg Deripaska, for example, wrote on his telegram channel on March 3: “Peace is very important! Delaying something special is madness! Ukraine has long been a nuclear power, on its territory, in addition to the mothballed Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are 15 more nuclear power units and three storage facilities for a spent power unit incomprehensible descendants of Ukraine – any objects that come across on the territory of European Russia and Europe will remember us all!
On March 14, Deripaska unexpectedly sent to the telegram channel a message on a video from Alexei Navalny’s YouTube export channel (they discussed the version of “repressions” against the FSB in connection with possible events in Ukraine), and on Thursday he wrote the word “peace” in his post.
The interview of Dvorkovich, the head of FIDE, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, caused a great resonance. “Wars are more undesirable than one can face in life. Any war. In any country. Including this war. Wars do not just take priceless lives. Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or embrace relationships and ties,” – said said he edition of Mother Jones.
His words did not go unnoticed. Already after Putin’s keynote speech about the “fifth column”, “national traitors” and “self-purification of society”, one of the last “United Russia” Andrei Turchak (also elected) told Dvorkovich, dismissing him from the Skolkovo Foundation.
Dvorkovich said that official meetings should be organized in Russia and Belarus at international events, Turchak said: the president spoke today.
“Well, it means that the self-purification of our society must begin, including with the Skolkovo Foundation, which amazes Dvorkovich,” Turchak approaches the alleged. The Kremlin said on Thursday that Dvorkovich’s job at Skolkovo would depend on his personal decisions.
The host of the Vremya program, Ekaterina Andreeva, also spoke about the war among the students of the Ostankino TV school, behind whose back an employee of Channel One showed an anti-war poster on the air.
Photographer, First channel
Telegram channels saw Andreeva’s words as a veiled statement against the war.
“In this poster, I can agree with all the English text, which was written understandably for English views, not for a grandmother from some New Vasyuki,” she said (in English it was written “No War”). “But I never We check all the facts, our correspondents are in the hottest spots and video footage of what is happening there.”
The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, also conceived words against fate. “I am against solving problems by force, I hate wars and revolutions. But the profession requires thinking about the fate of culture and its healing role in society. “Biso Group”, which is why he was expelled.
“A lot of people are traitors themselves”
The Kremlin has not publicly raised concerns about an invasion. However, the daughter of the presidential press secretary, Elizaveta Peskova, posted the hashtag #no war on Instagram, but soon deleted it. And when a sentence was imposed against the United States, she called it insanity.
“With all my heart I would like to recommend taking into account the increased attention to the children of those who fought in Vietnam, who bombed Yugoslavia, of course, this does not apply to the Kid and Fat Man, Korea, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan,” wrote she is the telegram channel “Antiglanets”. “I’m proud to be Russian,” she said.
Peskov himself on Thursday, commenting on Putin’s thesis about the “self-purification of society,” only raised the degree by using the word “traitors.”
“In such difficult times and in a characteristically responsible situation, an emotionally exalted situation, a lot of people show their essence. A lot of people show themselves, in Russian speaking, as traitors.
“Someone leaves their positions, someone leaves active service life, someone returns the country and transfers it to another state. This is how this purification happens,” he returns.
Among those who left the country and work was Andrey Panov, deputy general director for strategic development of Aeroflot. It became known that television journalists quit – Lilia Gildeeva and Vadim Glusker from NTV, Zhanna Agalakova from Channel One. It is possible that later they will be sent to Russia.
“Someone has broken the law and is demanding for this state in accordance with court decisions,” the Kremlin spokesman added.
The day before it became known about the first three criminal cases initiated under the new article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on “military fakes”, including against well-known bloggers Veronika Belotserkovskaya, who on Instagram reported “deliberately false information” about the collection of the Russian armed forces “to cover cities “. and the movement of the population of Ukraine, including children” (quote from the TFR website).
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine claims that more than 100 children have already died in Ukraine during the war. The Russian Defense Ministry has said that it strikes only for random reasons.
“unification in a situation of fear”
“When people begin to feel the economic impact [санкций], then different opinions may appear here, – political scientist Ekaterina Shulman told the BBC. – Someone will be angry with the West, which harms us so much. Someone will ask for sure what kind of policy it is that has led the country to such a hopeless and dramatic situation.
“Unification in a situation of fear, association around something that suggests the presence of certain forces – this is observed, but it is usually short-term,” Shulman said.
“When Friedman says that he is powerless to trade in Putin and, therefore, it makes no sense in relation to him, he is a little disingenuous. They will interfere,” political analyst Abbas Gallyamov writes on his Telegram channel.
The topic of “national betrayal” does not primarily affect the topic of persecution of the opposition – it is not oppositionists who are present in the field of view, political scientist Alexei Makarkin writes in the telegram channel. For a few post-Soviet representatives in the Russian elite, there is a layer of people who are organically integrated into the global world. Now there is a rapid transition to the logic of a “consecrated fortress”, and few in the “non-powerful” elites are ready for this – especially since there is no official war and the memory of it is considered a “fake”, the distribution of which is prohibited by law. Therefore, the official, the manager, and the businessman shrugged their shoulders: what kind of mobilization is this in world time? According to Makarkin, many of the possible choices to make – what was possible before, today is becoming impossible.
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