Car bombs, lawlessness and psychic healers: Russia revisits wild 1990s
As the war in Ukraine approaches its third grim anniversary, history has begun to repeat itself, posing a threat to Putin’s grip on Russia. The Kremlin’s decision to free tens of thousands of convicts from prison to fight in Ukraine has seen a two-fold rise in organised crime, according to official figures, while business disputes are increasingly being resolved by violence.
“The increase in violent crime generates a demand for protection, which serious criminals can offer, against thugs and former criminals back from the front,” said Federico Varese, the author of a book called Russia in Four Criminals.
Crimes involving firearms have also risen by as much as 17 times in some regions close to Ukraine, as guns flow freely across the border. Although the pact that Orlov described — stability in return for acquiescence to Putin’s authoritarianism — was annulled with the onset of all-out war in Ukraine, the outbreak of mobster violence is a troubling sign for Putin.
“Russia has returned to the 1990s. And, as ever, during a descent, we have sunk even deeper,” Dmitry Bykov, a Russian poet who opposes Putin, told the Telegram news channel Mozhem Obyasnit. “When there is shooting in the streets, this is always a loss of control and a symptom of a crisis.”
In Moscow last week, a businessman, his six-year-old son and their driver were injured when a bomb that had been wrapped in a baby’s blanket exploded on the bonnet of his car. A day earlier, in St Petersburg, masked men armed with hammers and axes broke into a factory during working hours and destroyed equipment.
Last month, two security guards were killed close to the Kremlin when armed men burst into the headquarters of Wildberries, an online shopping company that is owned by Tatiana Kim, Russia’s wealthiest woman. The incident was described as “the worst example of corporate violence” since the 1990s by the Moscow Times, an independent website that has been banned in Russia.
The Kremlin’s efforts to boost its army in Ukraine have also resulted in the collapse of the criminal justice system. Although Russia has been freeing convicts to fight at the front since 2022, Putin this month approved a law that grants suspects, even in murder cases, total immunity from prosecution if they agree to sign a contract with the armed forces.
After outlawing the non-existent “international public LGBT movement” as an extremist and terrorist group last year, Moscow is now on the verge of banning the promotion of a childfree lifestyle, both of which it said were imported from the West. Senior officials have also alleged that the “furries” trend for people to cosplay as animals is a western plot aimed at enslaving the world.
Despite Putin’s promotion of an ultra-conservative, Orthodox ideology, there has been a huge rise in demand for so-called magical services since the start of the war in Ukraine, a phenomenon that is thought to be a result of widespread uncertainty and unease over the conflict. The church has called for a ban on such services, a demand that has been backed by some MPs.
https://archive.ph/VMBNV
As the war in Ukraine approaches its third grim anniversary, history has begun to repeat itself, posing a threat to Putin’s grip on Russia. The Kremlin’s decision to free tens of thousands of convicts from prison to fight in Ukraine has seen a two-fold rise in organised crime, according to official figures, while business disputes are increasingly being resolved by violence.
“The increase in violent crime generates a demand for protection, which serious criminals can offer, against thugs and former criminals back from the front,” said Federico Varese, the author of a book called Russia in Four Criminals.
Crimes involving firearms have also risen by as much as 17 times in some regions close to Ukraine, as guns flow freely across the border. Although the pact that Orlov described — stability in return for acquiescence to Putin’s authoritarianism — was annulled with the onset of all-out war in Ukraine, the outbreak of mobster violence is a troubling sign for Putin.
“Russia has returned to the 1990s. And, as ever, during a descent, we have sunk even deeper,” Dmitry Bykov, a Russian poet who opposes Putin, told the Telegram news channel Mozhem Obyasnit. “When there is shooting in the streets, this is always a loss of control and a symptom of a crisis.”
In Moscow last week, a businessman, his six-year-old son and their driver were injured when a bomb that had been wrapped in a baby’s blanket exploded on the bonnet of his car. A day earlier, in St Petersburg, masked men armed with hammers and axes broke into a factory during working hours and destroyed equipment.
Last month, two security guards were killed close to the Kremlin when armed men burst into the headquarters of Wildberries, an online shopping company that is owned by Tatiana Kim, Russia’s wealthiest woman. The incident was described as “the worst example of corporate violence” since the 1990s by the Moscow Times, an independent website that has been banned in Russia.
The Kremlin’s efforts to boost its army in Ukraine have also resulted in the collapse of the criminal justice system. Although Russia has been freeing convicts to fight at the front since 2022, Putin this month approved a law that grants suspects, even in murder cases, total immunity from prosecution if they agree to sign a contract with the armed forces.
After outlawing the non-existent “international public LGBT movement” as an extremist and terrorist group last year, Moscow is now on the verge of banning the promotion of a childfree lifestyle, both of which it said were imported from the West. Senior officials have also alleged that the “furries” trend for people to cosplay as animals is a western plot aimed at enslaving the world.
Despite Putin’s promotion of an ultra-conservative, Orthodox ideology, there has been a huge rise in demand for so-called magical services since the start of the war in Ukraine, a phenomenon that is thought to be a result of widespread uncertainty and unease over the conflict. The church has called for a ban on such services, a demand that has been backed by some MPs.
https://archive.ph/VMBNV
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
