The bellicose and authoritarian Russian state's propaganda exploitation of the anarcho-pacifist novelist Leo Tolstoy is an obvious and perverse irony. But a less obvious irony also presents itself. Like all fascist regimes, that of Vladimir Putin is stigmatizing and even criminalizing homosexuality and other sexual "deviance." Following alarming reports of "concentration camps" for gay men in the Russian republic of Chechnya, Moscow began to impose an anti-gay agenda nationwide. A 2020 constitutional reform officially enshrined "traditional marriage," while a "gay propaganda law" imposes penalties on any outward expression of gay identity, resulting in police raids on Moscow gay bars. The "LGBT movement" has been designated a "terrorist organization"; media depictions of same-sex love are banned as "deviant content." Yet the venerable littérateur now glorified as a symbol of Russian nationalism may have himself been gay. In Episode 247 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Javier Sethness Castro, author of Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography (Routledge 2023).

A Russian military court on July 15 convicted a playwright and a theater director and sentenced them each to six years in prison over a play that was found to "justify terrorism." The judge found writer Svetlana Petriychuk and director Yevgeniya Berkovich, who had been in pre-trial detention since May 2023, guilty under Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code. This provision makes the offense of "justifying terrorism" punishable by up to seven years imprisonment.

The deadly terror attack in a concert hall outside Moscow was immediately claimed by ISIS-K, the Islamic State network's Afghanistan franchise. But just as quickly, the Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services accused each other of being behind it—the latter saying it was organized as a "provocation" to expand Moscow's war in Ukraine. Putin's rise to power, including his recent rise to outright autocratic power, as well as his various military adventures, have indeed been lubricated every step of the way by terror attacks. But who was actually behind the Crocus City Center attack may not really matter overmuch. If 9-11 was a "Reichstag Fire" for the hyper-interventionist aims of Dubya Bush, that analogy may prove to apply even more closely to the concert hall carnage serving the war aims and totalitarian domestic agenda of Vladimir Putin. Bill Weinberg discusses in Episode 219 of the CounterVortex podcast.

A group of armed men opened fire at a concert hall in a Moscow suburb on the night of March 22, killing at least 133 people and injuring scores more. Video footage posted online showed at least two masked men in camo entering the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, repeatedly firing assault rifles as they advance. Another graphic video appears to show four men firing into the crowd in the seating area before a fire breaks out. The crowd was waiting for the popular Russian rock band Piknik to take the stage. After a few minutes of shooting, a grenade or an incendiary bomb was apparently thrown, and the venue was engulfed in flame. Footage published by the official TASS news agency showed a column of smoke billowing from the roof of the venue. 

The Russian Ministry of Justice on Sept. 1 designated Dmitry Muratov, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning internationally esteemed journalist, as a "foreign agent." This classification was justified on the grounds that Muratov "used foreign platforms to disseminate opinions aimed at forming a negative attitude towards the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation." The label, reminiscent of the "enemy of the people" designation of the Soviet era, imposes harsh constraints on activities and requires sources of funding to be disclosed. The 2015 law has been widely used by the Kremlin to silence critics. 

The Moscow City Court ruled Aug. 18 to liquidate the Public Commission for the Preservation of the Heritage of Academician Sakharov, or the Sakharov Center, one of Russia's most respected human rights organizations, for "systematic, gross and irremediable violations of the law." The order was granted after an application from the Ministry of Justice.

A group of United Nations human rights experts called on the Russian Federation July 7 to investigate a violent attack against journalist Yelena Milashina and human rights lawyer Alexander Nemov, and bring to justice the perpetrators. The incident occurred on July 4 in the Russian Republic of Chechnya. Milashina was covering, and Nemov participating in, the trial of Zarema Musaeva, the mother of exiled opposition activists who challenged the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine in February, the Kremlin has been using the rhetoric of "denazification" to justify its war of aggression. It now appears to be updating its nomenclature.  Aleksey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, told state news agency RIA Novosti Oct. 25 that Ukraine has become a "totalitarian hypersect" where citizens have abandoned Orthodox Christian values. He added that the "desatanization" of Ukraine should be a goal of the "special military operation." Pavlov also favorably quoted Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov as calling for the "complete de-shaitanization" of Ukraine. (Pravda)