Geneva honors critics of Putin – Nobel laureate warns of Russian nuclear war
Nobel Prize winners warn of Russian nuclear war
The city of Geneva has awarded its Medal of Honor to Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov. The 60-year-old talks about an escalation in the Ukraine war.
“The end of the war in Ukraine may be the end of humanity.” With this drastic and memorable sentence, the Russian journalist and Putin critic Dmitry Muratov ended a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. The 60-year-old believes that Putin firing nuclear weapons is a realistic scenario.
Muratov said: If Putin were to press the red button to use nuclear weapons on a TV show, many Russians would be watching him enthusiastically. “People have long since lost their fear of nuclear weapons.”
Dmitri Muratov was in Geneva because the city council awarded him and the Filipino investigative journalist Maria Ressa a medal of honour. Muratov and Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize last December.
Nobel Prize winner’s eyes burned
Muratov pays a high price for his anti-Kremlin journalism. An unknown person showered the founder and editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” with red paint during a train ride in April and burned Muratov’s eyes. The attack is attributed to Russian intelligence. Muratov said his retina was damaged and he had to keep closing his eyes. He has to wear sunglasses at times. He was able to identify the perpetrator, but no criminal investigation was opened.
This attack ended lightly. In the last 20 years, six employees of “Novaya Gazeta” have been murdered. In particular, the shooting of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 caused a worldwide sensation.
Newspaper had to give up
Media Minister Simonetta Sommaruga also traveled to Geneva to honor Ressa and Muratov. She doesn’t know what it’s like to risk one’s life and sleep if one has to reckon with being poisoned, Sommaruga said in a speech. But they know that democracy journalists like Muratov and Ressa need it.
Of course, Muratov spoke in Geneva mainly on one topic: the Russian war in Ukraine. Also out of personal concern. The Moscow editors of “Novaya Gazeta” first tried to write about the war, including ambiguous statements in the texts and illustrations. In March, the editors had to suspend their work after multiple warnings from the media regulator and because of the threat of reprisals.
It is unclear how the “Novaya Gazeta” will continue. Muratov and his editors have received an offer to continue working in the Baltic States. “We have plans, but I don’t want to reveal them today,” said the 60-year-old in Geneva. However, he has already decided to sell his Nobel Prize medal in an auction and give the proceeds to refugees.
«The propaganda has replaced the information. That was the preparation for the war.”
For the Moscow journalist, too, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was likely. When he received the Nobel Prize in December, he never thought that Putin would declare war on Ukraine, the 60-year-old said. Today, however, he can very well explain how it came about. The Russian leadership has valued political opponents and independent media, while at the same time mounting “broad propaganda” across Russia.
Politicians share responsibility
Thus, according to Muratov, an entire nation began to believe that the line set by Putin corresponded to the real world. «The propaganda has replaced the information. That was the preparation for the war,” said the journalist. At the same time, the government has made it clear to the people that if they love their homeland, they must also love their government. “And convinced that those who carried out the propaganda ultimately believed their propaganda themselves,” analyzed Muratov.
The world-famous Geneva cartoonist Patrick Chappatte wanted to know from Muratow what the people here in Geneva could do in the context of the Ukraine war. The Russian made it clear that he blamed Western politics for the war in Ukraine and recalled how many politicians and human rights defenders have visited Moscow in recent years, bought raw materials and secretly sold weapons. “It shouldn’t have been, but it was the reality,” criticized Muratov.
Philip Reichen has been the French-speaking Switzerland correspondent based in Lausanne since 2012. He studied history, philosophy and general constitutional law at the universities of Zurich and Freiburg im Breisgau.
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