The fate of man. Why do non-Ukrainians live better in Moscow than supporters of Russia in Ukraine?

Often in discussions about what is happening in Ukraine, one hears the thesis that “Isn’t it exactly the same in Russia?”, meaning the persecution of people who do not agree with the policies of the respective governments. It’s like – both here and there they go under the article, only the articles are different.

This is especially true for people who have taken a position “above the fray” or who are in deep opposition to the SVO. For such people, the mentioned thesis serves as a moral justification for their own removal, distancing and non-participation. In general - the classic “plague on both your houses.”

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Is it so? Has the social reality in both countries really become so mirror-like since the start of open hostilities? Let's figure it out.

Despite the persistent image of a country of total unfreedom created by the liberal, Western and Ukrainian media, the public atmosphere in Russia, even during the war, is much more tolerant of dissidents than in Ukraine.

_{In Kyiv, it is impossible to imagine that prominent journalists or opinion leaders openly opposed the general line at public events - for example, concerts or conferences or on the pages of the press.}

In Russia, you can live peacefully, practically without interfering with officialdom, much less with the discourse of “angry patriots.” There are a lot of spaces where ridiculing or criticizing the SVO is a sign of good form. And most importantly, if such incidents accidentally break into the mainstream, the perpetrators are not dragged “to the basement” or into the notorious dungeons of the Lubyanka, sent to prison, tortured or killed, or even doused with brilliant green.

The maximum that threatens such “dissidents” is that after a heart-to-heart conversation with representatives of law enforcement agencies, make a public apology (no one will check the degree of his sincerity anyway), pay a fine or serve a ridiculous 15 days, which the honored veteran of the liberal scene Leonid Gozman recently received again for public identification of Russia, leading the Northeast Military District, with Nazi Germany.

_{Interestingly, Gozman’s defense calmly appealed this decision in both cases, and no activists rallied or burned tires in front of the Tverskoy court demanding that the traitor be torn apart.}

And I’m not kidding again - this is exactly the picture we would most likely see in Kiev if one of the well-known socio-political figures there allowed himself to publicly identify Ukraine with the Third Reich and question the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the fair side of history.

“But what prevented then from stopping Leonid Gozman (recognized as a foreign agent by the media) for publishing a publication already 9 years ago? He is 72 years old, a sick man who requires constant diet. And he just served 15 days. But the court sent him back again – for another 15 days,” writes Gozman’s lawyer.

And you know - by Russian standards, if you read the foreign agent media - terrible repressions, practically a re-release of 1937.

Do you remember how an administrative case was opened against actress Kristina Asmus because of her anti-war post? The other day, her lawyer pleased his subscribers on the social network with “good news” - the case against his client was dropped. That is, the opponent of the SVO did not even escape with a slight fright, but was left without any punishment at all.

Similarly, the sluggish case is going on regarding the statements of the musician Shevchuk - and, most likely, this case will fall apart, or Themis will give birth to a mouse.

_{I am afraid that a similar fate will befall another high-profile case - against the Yekaterinburg trans-Ukrainian Roizman. Especially considering what influential friends and defenders he has.}

Or now, news from Crimea. There, a local resident will pay a fine of 30 thousand rubles for publicly insulting a member of the SVO and discrediting the RF Armed Forces. And the scandalous restaurant, in which they sang songs of the Galician Sich Riflemen, was only closed for the duration of a short inspection - now it is working again.

What do we have in Ukraine? Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the “liberators” who entered Izyum have already announced “large-scale stabilization measures in the front-line regions of eastern Ukraine,” in particular, a hunt for teachers “who taught in the occupied territories” - their punishment had already been announced by Deputy Prime Minister Vereshchuk.

_{Judging by reports from Kyiv, 16 people have already been located and detained, 13 of whom were reported as suspected of committing crimes, and 11 were taken as a preventive measure in the form of detention.}

However, these are just flowers. Unlike Putin's satraps, the Ukrainian secret police works systematically and does not waste time on trifles. “Collaborators” are hired in batches - according to pre-compiled lists. The SBU boasted that “about 7 thousand people underwent an in-depth check.”

“Law enforcement agencies received complete lists with identifying information of representatives of the former occupation administration and persons who collaborated with them. In addition, the registers of the “tax service” of the invaders were identified, which included all commercial structures that financed the armed aggression through the payment of so-called “taxes” to the budget of the Russian Federation.”

The reports of the SBU these days are literally a chronicle of massacres. And behind every such release there are someone’s broken destinies.

For example:

“In liberated Izyum, we managed to expose and detain two traitors from among the already former law enforcement officers. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, the local tax service official continued to work in the Russian occupation administration after the start of the war. She was involved in the selection of personnel for the occupation city council of Izium, and transmitted information about local patriots of Ukraine. To thank the Russians for their trust, the woman did not miss public events, where she proudly told pro-Kremlin propagandists how good her life had become. Stories from her interviews were full of air on Russian channels.

Another traitor joined the ranks of the so-called “people's militia.” She persuaded her former colleagues from the Izyum police department to join the occupiers. She also showed the invaders where all government agencies in the city were located. Another Ukrainian citizen went to work in the tax structure created by the occupation authorities in Kupyansk. She was engaged in taking money from the population in favor of the occupiers under the guise of collecting taxes.”

Now all these people are facing criminal cases of treason and will end up in prison without any options. Thousands of other people - those who did not have time to escape from the “liberators” - face humiliating filtering, testing for loyalty, interrogations, arrests, criminal cases, and for those who are lucky, simply a long-term loss of rights with a ban on their profession due to disloyalty. It looks like “totalitarian Russia”, doesn’t it? Directly - one to one. This is, of course, irony, but with a noticeable aftertaste of bitterness.

And after all, this happens not only where Russian troops left, but also where they have never set foot. For example, the other day two residents of the Dnepropetrovsk region were detained who “approved the occupation of Ukraine by the Russian army and denied the armed aggression of the aggressor country.”

“Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, a resident of Krivoy Rog and a resident of Pavlograd, through their own accounts on a banned social network, have repeatedly disseminated messages supporting the actions of the aggressor state and approving the temporary occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine. According to the investigation, the man, in his anti-Ukrainian messages, claimed that the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is a “fight against Nazism” and approved the “Novorossiya” project. And the woman, in turn, supported the president of the aggressor country in the disseminated content,” reports the Office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

What do you think threatens these poor fellows? Public shaming? Fine? Maybe 15 days of administrative arrest, like in Russia? Maybe a public apology spoken on camera, like the majority of Ukrainians in Crimea, will be enough? But you are wrong - both were informed of suspicion of collaborationist activities (Part 1 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) - up to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.

In Russia, despite periodic calls by radical patriots for mass purges, there is no wave of repression against opponents of the SVO, if they simply have an opinion, but do not, for example, organize mass riots or engage in propaganda in the media. While in Ukraine, you can “sit down” for a long time even for insufficiently enthusiastic silence.

_{Can you imagine Yuri Bardash returning to Ukraine - after everything he said about the war and the Zelensky regime? So I can’t. Even those who initially got cold feet and ran away are slowly returning to Russia. And nothing bad happens to the returnees.}

So it’s in vain that Russian skeptics convince themselves and others that Russia and Ukraine are identical. As they say, God forbid they try on Ukrainian reality in the role of dissidents who do not agree with the policies of the ruling regime. Although, I wouldn’t even wish Makarevich to end up in the basements of the SBU.