Any Russian critical of President Putin is now a potential enemy of the state
Natalia Arno was fully inside the hotel room before she noticed the smell. It was sickly sweet, like a cheap perfume at the drug store, only more nauseating.
It was May 2 2023, and Arno had arrived in Prague the night before, on part of a European tour. The Russian activist and non-profit director had been on the road, meeting with donors and organisers looking for ways to bolster democracy back in Russia. On the previous leg of her trip, Arno had felt a bit tired, like she was coming down with something. But now, after a day of meetings and a business dinner, she was full of her usual energy. She was just going back to her room to change into jeans, before meeting up for drinks with colleagues.
…
Three hours later, Arno woke up with an excruciating pain inside her mouth — a burning sensation so unbearable she could barely open it. Arno is no stranger to pain. When she was 13, she dropped a pot of boiling water, burning herself so badly she had to spend a month in a hospital where there were no painkillers. She gave birth to her son without pain relief and treats most illnesses with a cup of hot tea and honey. But this agony surpassed any she had ever experienced.
…
There are many ways to incapacitate an enemy. But, historically, few have proved so attractive to the Soviet and Russian security services as poisoning. Ever since Vladimir Lenin set up his poison factory, known as the “Special Room”, over a century ago, poisonings have become one of the Kremlin’s preferred ways to eliminate, cripple or terrorise enemies and critics. Over the decades, it has built up unrivalled expertise in the field.
The Cold War never actually did end, did it? The communist government fell, but the threat didn’t.
At any rate, there’s a robust defense against this sort of strategy–strength in numbers. Go ahead, try to poison all of us.
This seems racist and I can’t believe it’s so high upvoted. Sure, the unstable and corrupt leadership continued after the fall of the Soviet Union. But seriously?
They’ve been an incredibly brutal imperialist country for centuries now; the Soviet Union was just more of the same. I’m not saying it’s a genetic feature of all Russians, but something is clearly fucked up about the way they run their country when they can’t go few decades without committing literal genocide
EDIT: Some Russian genocides and ethnic cleansings over the years
Just to drive the point home, here’s a list of just the easiest to find genocides and ethnic cleansings perpetrated by Russians that I found with a minimum of searching based on what I remember from history. Note that there’s some overlap between these, so you can’t just sum the “victims” column to get a total victim count.
| Date | Event | Victims |
|---|---|---|
| 1785 – 2017 | Chechen genocide | 500,000 – 900,000 deaths |
| 1800 – 1870 | Circassian genocide | 1,500,000 – 2,000,000 deaths |
| 1850s – ongoing | Cultural genocide by Russification in colonized areas | Hard to estimate. Millions, with many minority cultures lost |
| 1920s – 1930s | Genocide of the Ingrian Finns | Ingrian population reduced from 140,000 – 160,000 before the persecution to 19,000 today |
| 1920s – ??? | Ethnic cleansings on the Kola Peninsula | Nordic population of the Kola peninsula dropped from 20% to 0.2% |
| 1930 – 1952 | Cultural genocide by forced migration in the Soviet Union | 6,000,000 deported |
| 1932 – 1933 | Genocide of Ukrainians in the Holodomor | 3,800,000 – 5,300,000 deaths |
| 2015 – ??? | Syrian, Russian forces carrying out ethnic cleansing around Aleppo, Turkmen accuse Russia of ethnic cleansing in Syria air strikes | Tens of thousands displaced and/or dead |
| 2022 – ongoing | Genocide in the current Ukraine war | ??? |
| 2023 – ongoing | Pogroms in the Caucasus | ??? |
