Monthly Newsletter
May 14th, Channel One
Sermon. Documentary film by Alexander Prokhanov
A 3-episode documentary by Alexander Prokhanov, an author who is known for preaching extreme imperial rhetoric in praise of states that existed throughout history, be it the Tsardom, USSR, or current Russia. The film contains the following quote: “The Russian state is the benefactor of the Russian people. Although perhaps there is no other state in the world that is more severe, harsh, or even cruel, the Russian people endure the cruelties of the state, bear the burdens imposed on them because they understand that when there is a state, there are Russian people. There is no state, the people disappear, turning into a senseless crown”. This is a reminder of how exactly the Russian state sees an acceptable form of nationalism - complete loyalty to the state, and acceptance that everything the state does is in their best interest.
https://archive.org/details/1TV_20250513_210000_Aleksandr_Prokhanov/start/240/end/300
https://www.1tv.ru/doc/propoved-dokumentalnyy-film-aleksandra-prohanova
May 14th, RBC
Grigory Melkonyants sentenced to 5 years in prison
The Russian court has sentenced the co-chairman of the non-government election monitoring organisation for ‘undesirable activity.’ During the trial, the defence called "absurd" the statements that organisations different in legal form can be a single whole, and again turned to the wording - not "proven", but "obviously". This trial is a reminder of how the Kremlin values statistics and its presentation, willing to shut down and arrest organisations that can provide alternative data and interpretations.
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/14/05/2025/68243c549a79474ebed8c249
12th May, Golos
Grigory Melkonyants' last plea
Melkonyants said in his last statement that he did not understand why he had to prove the "negative fact" that the Golos movement was not a structural unit of ENEMO and that he did not organise its activities "by speaking at a round table in the Central Election Commission." He cited two responses from the Ministry of Justice, from which it follows that ENEMO does not have structural divisions in Russia, and the Golos movement and ENEMO are two different organisations that are included in two different registers. Melkonyants pleaded not guilty and asked Judge Evgenia Nikolaeva to interpret "irremovable doubts" in his favour.
https://golosinfo.org/en/articles/154637
15 April 2025
In Moscow, a pensioner was beaten for trying to tear off the niqab from a metro passenger. In the past, the attacker was a hostage of Basayev's militants.
In Moscow, a 64-year-old pensioner was beaten in a metro station after attempting to remove a niqab from a female passenger. She was subsequently detained and placed under administrative arrest for 7 days for disorderly conduct, and the attacker was arrested for 13 days. Pensioner is a survivor of the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis.
29 March 2025
End of March, a celebration of Uraza Bayram or Eid al-Fitr took place around the world, including Russia.
By this point, big public celebrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg are no longer new, showing demographic changes. However, other major cities are usually ignored, even though the same gatherings occur all across the country, including Siberian cities that were not part of Khanates (historical habitats of Muslims), such as Novosibirsk and Vladivostok.
15 March 2025
New political party is announced to being formed in Russia, that aims to unite imperial Russian nationalists and called Coalition of Russia’s patriotic forces ‘Russian Spring’/Коалиция российских патриотических сил «Русская весна».
Among the first policy initiatives are anti-migrants package of measures and a proposal to repeal the effect of an article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code.