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Cake day: March 19th, 2024
  • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todaytoWorld News@lemmy.world•Putin is Hunting Down Ordinary PeopleEnglish
    65·
    2 months ago

    Since the title wasn’t clear on who the author is classifying as ordinary:

    There are also the hundreds of thousands of Russians who left home because they did not want to have anything to do with Vladimir Putin’s war — or were forced out, accused of not embracing it enough. These low-profile dissenters are subjected to surveillance and kidnappings, too. Yet their repression happens in silence — away from the spotlight and often with the tacit consent, or inadequate prevention, of the countries to which they have fled.

    Also:

    Some of the methods are especially insidious. Lev Gyammer, an exiled activist in Poland, has been receiving texts for two years, supposedly from his mother. “Levushka, son, I miss you so, when will you visit me?” Another reads, “Son, I’m waiting for you. Come back soon.” He ignores them: His mother, Olga, died five years ago. Another Russian expatriate — whose elderly parents are still alive and very sick — chose to believe it when his parents’ nurse of many years told him, over the phone, of a fire in their apartment. He rushed home from Finland and was immediately taken to prison and tortured, according to Mr. Smirnov. Of course, there never was a fire.

    Those who cannot be tricked back to Russia are subjected to surveillance. An employee of an organization that supports L.G.B.T.Q. people was walking her dog around the neighborhood in Tbilisi, Georgia, when she noticed that she was being followed by a drone. It was an evening in early May — two years since she’d fled Russia with the rest of her colleagues. She hurried back to hide at her apartment but could still hear the buzzing. She followed the noise to the balcony and came face to face with the device, hanging there within arm’s reach.