The Escalating Costs of Criticizing Putins Invasion

A Russian state television employee emerged as one of the most high-profile critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when the woman, Marina Ovsyannikova, interrupted a popular news show to yell “Stop the war” while holding up a sign that read, “They’re lying to you here.”

The brief act of protest last week, along with a video she made, landed Ovsyannikova in police detention, got her fined and led to her being investigated for violating Russia’s new so-called “false information” law, which can put someone in prison for up to 15 years for refusing to toe the official line on the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ovsyannikova is one of thousands of Russians who have spoken out against the war since it began on Feb. 24. On March 6 alone, at least 5,000 people participated in protests in cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg. And, like Ovsyannikova, many have been arrested.

While it’s clear Russian citizens face significant risks in speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine – an assault that by some estimates has left over 1,000 Ukrainians and 7,000 Russians dead – the extent of those risks is currently unknown and evolving, experts say.

The current situation in Russia is “uncharted territory,” says Michael David-Fox, a historian at Georgetown University who specializes in modern Russia and the USSR.

Just last week, President Vladimir Putin pledged to cleanse Russia of “scum and traitors” who he said were working with the West to destroy the country.

"The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths," he said, according to media reports.

Fearful of their fate, thousands of Russians have fled their country in recent weeks – and for good reason.

Since the start of the invasion, police have detained more than 13,000 Russians for their opposition to the war, according to human rights group Amnesty International. Some citizens have been fired from their jobs or kicked out of universities for expressing their dissent, according to reports.

“Speaking out might see one lose their job,” says Michael Smeltzer, a research analyst for the human rights organization Freedom House, by email. “Going to a protest might see one end up behind bars, brutally beaten. Even using the word ‘war’ to describe what the Kremlin cynically calls a ‘special military operation’ is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”

Russian authorities have already charged dozens of people for violating its false information law, passed in early March. According to NPR, a “Committee in Defense of National Interests has also begun publishing online a list of Russians who left the country, denouncing them as ‘cowards and deserters.’”
Those who are taken into Russian custody are at risk of mistreatment, experts say.

“Many have been routinely denied access to lawyers and deprived of food, water and bedding,” says Daniel Balson, Amnesty International USA’s Europe and Central Asia advocacy director, by email. “Protesters have also been subject to beatings, humiliation and other forms of ill-treatment.”

A Slow Stifling of Dissent 

In the recent past, Russians were able to privately criticize their government without fear, David-Fox says. There were consequences associated with public demonstrations, but they didn’t compare to today’s risks. “In earlier parts of [Putin’s] presidency, things were more freewheeling than many Americans might expect,” he says.

In the last three years, however, he says it has become increasingly risky to challenge the Russian government. This became especially clear in 2021, when Alexei Navalny, a political opponent of Putin's, was poisoned and subsequently arrested. (On Tuesday, Navalny was convicted of fraud and contempt of court and sentenced to nine years in a maximum security prison – a move many assume was politically motivated.)

The Russian government has increasingly clamped down on demonstrators since Putin came to power, according to Balson. Both 2004 and 2014 saw the introduction of restrictive legislation that made it progressively more difficult to challenge the government.

“In recent years, the space for civic activism and assembly has shrunk as the Kremlin increasingly saw a challenge to its power in the form of popular movements,” says Smeltzer. “It’s gotten to a point where even a single person picketing on the streets is an illegal act.”

Experts note that Russia is still a party to international agreements that protect the civil liberties of its citizens and therefore could theoretically face consequences from the global community for curtailing freedom of speech.

Juscelino Colares, the co-director of the Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University, says that the crackdown on protests could lead to sanctions from the European Court of Human Rights. Its governing document, the European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia is still party to, has specific provisions protecting freedom of assembly and prohibiting unjust arrests, he says.

An Isolated, Unreadable Public

Given the risks tied to freedom of expression in Russia, experts say it is extremely difficult to accurately assess the popularity of the war among its citizens.

According to recent polls by the Levada Center, a Russian nongovernmental research organization, a third of Russians said they believed that the breakaway regions of Ukraine should become independent, while a quarter of Russians thought the regions should become a part of the Russian Federation. Most Russians, however, also said that they were “scared” about the prospect of war with Ukraine. David-Fox notes the official state media hasn’t been able to show “any kind of mass support or jubilation.”

Putin’s recent crackdown on independent journalism “almost entirely deprives people in Russia of access to objective, unbiased and trustworthy information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” says Balson.

If Russians understood the true nature of the war, the opposition would be far greater, says Robert Orttung, a professor at George Washington University who specializes in researching Russia and Ukraine.

“If Russians had access to reliable information about what's actually happening on the ground, there would be strong opposition to this war, because they went through World War II,” he says.

Russian national identity is strongly linked to being invaded and subsequently fighting off the Nazis during the Second World War, he says. Becoming the invading force contradicts how Russians view themselves and their country.

“We must avoid any Russophobia in the current moment,” says Smeltzer. “It’s vital that we remember that Russians didn’t have a voice in choosing their leaders who started this war.”