A NOTE: Our Russia-Ukraine Resources are updated weekly - if you're accessing the page three or more weeks past the below date, pieces mentioned in this post may have been removed to make room for up-to-date resources.
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Updated Resources - July 3, 2024
A protester with a placard "No to War" on Bauman Street in the Russian city of Kazan. 27 February 2022. (Vyacheslav Kirillin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
Kyiv Independent: Newsfeed
Novaya Gazeta Europe: Newsfeed
The Insider: Newsfeed
The Telegraph via Apple Podcasts - Ukraine: The Latest
The 'Last Address Sign' is a commemorative plaque that is installed on the last known residential address of victims of the Soviet Union's Communist regime. The memorial sign is a small, 11x19 cm stainless steel plaque that contains information about the repressed person. This information usually contains his or her name, profession, date of birth, date of arrest, date and reason of death (was shot or died in a Soviet concentration camp), and date of rehabilitation ('for lack of corpus delicti'). 24 February 2018. (David Krikheli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
WHAT'S ON OUR MIND
In addition to our weekly resource update, today we also offer an updated collection of pieces on the Israeli-Hamas war.
To many who are fortunate to live where freedom of speech is almost taken for granted, there is a perception that Russian anti-war resistance receded almost as soon as it began in the early weeks of the invasion. Today, news of anti-war Russia seldom makes headlines in global publications. Its perceived absence is criticized by many living beyond Russia’s borders, who chalk its lack of representation up to apparent apathy. However, concealed in the cracks, and often in spite of increasingly rigid and repressive legislation, the drums of the anti-war movement still beat.
It is quieter now - and often obscured in the shadows - but it remains. Even under challenging conditions, there are those who boldly step out into the light despite the known risks, whether out of principle or for the sake of their mobilized relatives. In today’s collection, we illuminate the state of the Russian anti-war resistance, highlighting acts of resistance and the individuals who fight back along the way.
Novaya Gazeta Europe provides a basis for understanding how the resistance movement continues to thrive underground. Meduza delves into the reinvigorated practice of denunciation through interviews with some of the most active members on the popular messaging app Telegram’s ‘informant channels’. A piece from Wired details how Telegram provides refuge to LGBTQ Russians amid Moscow’s wartime condemnation of the queer community.
The story of a Komi republic journalist in exile reveals the intersection of anti-war resistance, independent journalism, and Russia’s ethnic regions in a piece from The Moscow Times. Meduza explores how journalism students at St. Petersburg State University find ways to write about the war even as censorship expands. History echoes in both Foreign Affairs and The Moscow Times. The former examines how Russians are re-learning the Soviet era art of moral resistance, and the latter details how the ‘Last Address’ (Последний адрес) project provides visible reminders of Soviet repressions.
The Moscow Times shares an update on the demobilization movement, where ‘The Way Home’ (путь домой) - one of the movement’s most prominent groups and a recently designated ‘foreign agent’ - faces an uncertain future. And according to the Moscow Times, this wives, mothers and daughters' group appealed to authorities, encouraging Russian officials and media personalities to put their own sons on the ‘line’. Novaya Gazeta Europe steps back to consider the broader implications of The Way Home’s foreign agent status on the grassroots demobilization movement in its entirety.
Next we look at two unique acts of wartime resistance. Meduza relays how anti-war Russians hoaxed Russian officials with translations of Nazi poetry, earning recognition at pro-war poetry competitions and festivals. On the more visual and deeply personal end of the spectrum, The Moscow Times explores the practice of ‘anti-war tattooing’.
To close, we bear witness to the individuals who, at great personal risk, resist. Meduza and The Moscow Times tell of 83 year old Lyudmila Vasilyeva, a Leningrad siege survivor and anti-war activist who was forced to drop out from the gubernatorial race in St. Petersburg against a pro-Kremlin incumbent. The former publication also details a Paris exhibition honoring Oleg Orlov, the 71 year old human rights activist and artist serving two and half years in prison for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine. Meduza covers the efforts of a teacher forced to flee Russia following her attempt to educate students about the atrocities committed in Bucha, Ukraine. Also today, other pieces on resistance, its shape and its heroes.
Beyond resistance and on the heels of Putin’s Asia-Pacific visit, we offer two pieces. The Conversation examines what the leader’s trip reveals about Russia’s ambitions in the region, and Foreign Affairs interrogates China’s motives in brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
In the overview, an OCSE observer shares his experience on the ground in the city of Luhansk the month after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In videos, life in wartime Kyiv amid blackouts. In the arts, an artist in exile casts a jaded eye on his hometown, Russia’s cultural agenda seeks purchase in China, Spotify removes the works of pro-war Russian artists, and a new generation of music - ‘Bandura jazz’ - celebrates Ukrainian heritage and identity.
Find these topics - and so many more - covered in today’s Russia-Ukraine resource update. Visit our blog for the latest perspectives on the Israel-Hamas War, as well as a new reflection on the middle east conflict from our network.
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