WEBVTT - An Interview With An Anarchist Protester in Russia 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.760 Robert Evans here and Welcome to It Could Happen Here, 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.360 a podcast about how things are falling apart and how 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.720 to maybe put them back together. Obviously, the biggest story 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.599 probably in the world right now is the ongoing invasion 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.840 of Ukraine. In a major corollarrea of that story is 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.639 how dramatically things in Russia have taken a turn for 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.800 the totalitarian um. The country has become increasingly isolated from 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:30.760 most of the global community. This is due to a 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.000 mix of sanctions, to a lot of businesses pulling out 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:38.120 just because of the social consequences of not doing so UH, 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.320 and of policies that have been put down by Putin's 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.080 government in order to crack down on dissent and further 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:49.319 remove Russia from any kind of contact with the West. UM. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.320 As a result, it's kind of difficult to get in 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.960 touch with people who are resisting Putin's government from within Russia. UM. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:01.400 Anarchist activists in particular UM are not see people to reach. However, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.640 we did recently sit down with one of these individuals 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.800 and talk to them, so this episode will both be 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.639 an interview with that person and a bit of history 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.800 about the anarchist movements within Russia. Russia has actually a 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.880 very long history of anarchist organizing. Two of them in 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.600 generally considered foundational thinkers and anarchists political theory. Mikhail Bakunin 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.720 and Peter Kropotkin were both born in Russia. Both lived 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.319 and agitated under the Tsars. Bakunan was an advocate and 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.240 a major theorist of political terrorism. He fled the country, 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.480 was returned, and ultimately spent like ten years in prison there. 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.680 Kropotkin was the author of a seminal anarcho communist text 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.720 titled The Conquest of Bread, and he was only able 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.200 to return to Russia after the nineteen seventeen Revolution. He 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.800 died there in nineteen twenty one. It's also worth noting 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.320 that Peter Kropotkin is canonically the ancestor to Tommy Pickles 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.760 of the rug Rats, but that's something you can look 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:58.880 up on your own now. While some of the most 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.840 influential anarchist in history were Russian, and anarchist organizing was 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.000 a potent part of pre nineteen seventeen Russian political history, 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.720 the success of the Bolsheviks after nineteen seventeen led to 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.840 the movements near annihilation um Emma Goldman was yet another 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.880 major anarchist, activist, and thinker who was born and educated 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.680 in Russia. She immigrated to the United States in eighteen 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.320 eighty five, where she promptly helped try to assassinate a 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.079 steel magnate in revenge for his brutality against striking workers. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.239 Goldman grew to prominence as a labor activist and women's 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.000 rights activist in the last decade of the eighteen hundreds. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.400 In nineteen o one, her work helped inspire Leon Cho 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:40.160 Goosh to assassinate President William McKinley. While Emma Goldman had 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.679 no direct connection to Cho Gosh, she defended his actions 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.919 by saying, as an anarchist, I am opposed to violence, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.600 but if the people want to do away with assassins, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.799 they must do away with the conditions which produced murderers. 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:55.840 There's much more to say about Emma Goldman, but for 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.360 our purposes, what matters is that she was arrested for 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.200 opposing the draft in World War One and eventually deported 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.840 back to Russia. Right after the revolution. Goldman was initially 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.520 psyched that the czars had been deposed, but quickly became 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.600 disillusioned by the violence of the forming totalitarian Soviet state. 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.600 She considered this a betrayal of the revolution and wrote 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.560 a series of articles for The New York World that 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.679 have gone down as one of the first expose as 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.480 of conditions in the Soviet Union. Goldman's work was criticized 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.760 by many left wing intellectuals outside of Russia, but she 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.680 was correct about political repression in the new Bolshevik workers paradise. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.079 Matters did not improve for anarchists in the first twenty 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.160 years of the new regime. In nineteen thirty seven, in 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.440 his history of Anarchism in Russia, E. Yorroslansky wrote, in 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.320 the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, at the present time, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.760 the anarchists no longer enjoy any influence over the masses. 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:51.680 They are met with only as isolated individualists. The fall 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.720 of the Soviet Union, the coming of democracy, and the 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.160 slow rise to power of Vladimir Putin did not enormously 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.920 alter this state of affairs. Russian anarchists still exercise relatively 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.240 little influence over the masses. Most of them struggle towards 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.480 autonomy as isolated individuals. In March of twenty two, in 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.960 the third week of the Russian invasion, of Ukraine. I 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.960 sat down with one of these people. We've been chatting 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.440 online through Reddit for a couple of weeks, and the 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.760 process of setting up a proper audio interview was difficult. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.119 To say the least repression of all political descent under 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.919 Putin is extreme. More than thirteen thousand people were arrested 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.440 at anti war protests in the first two weeks of 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.560 the war, so you will understand why our source was 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.719 paranoid about his identity. I had to download a secure 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:39.840 app I'd never even heard of before, and he only 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.240 agreed to speak with me while using a voice changing 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.159 application to further disguise his identity. Due to the difficulties 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.880 this created, I will be paraphrasing him and quoting his 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.120 words myself at a couple of points here in order 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:53.919 to make listening to this a more comfortable experience. But 0:04:54.400 --> 0:05:08.960 here he is at ten years or so. It's bicycle 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:17.120 and co Of course, my initial cell was into weak 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:24.239 ten years ago plush. So just to make it clear, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.960 he's saying that he's been involved in anarchist organizing for 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.200 more than a decade since around two thousand eleven. The 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.760 initial cell he organized with was affiliated with an umbrella 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.080 organization called Autonomous Action. We'll talk about them more in 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.440 a minute, but it's important you understand that his cell, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.640 at about fifty people strong, was considered quite large for 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:55.000 Russia once in Moscow. In perspects, I guess in the 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:01.680 artists in linings because whatever they were worked for rental 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:20.880 of course, or concerned. Even in two thousand eleven, organizing 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.040 as an anarchist was rather risky. As a result, our 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.960 source actually started his career in activism on his own. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.640 As a single protester. He would stand out in public places, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.680 sometimes during other protests, sometimes on his own, holding a 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.440 sign that said in Russian peace to the world. Now 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.160 I'm reading you the English translation of what he put down. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.520 The the literal Russian words that he had on his 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.040 sign were a reference to a famous Soviet slogan officially 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.160 adopted in nineteen fifty one. The phrase actually has a 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.080 much older origin in the country, which begins under the 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.919 Orthodox Church and grew more popular among revolutionaries after the 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.760 February Revolution. The first leftist he use peace to the 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.160 world as a slogan in Russia may have actually been 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.400 a f Kerensky, who headed the brief democratic government that 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.360 ran things after the are stepped down. In our sources case, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.680 his sign was an act of protest against a number 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.440 of things, including the recent Russian invasion of Georgia and 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:21.240 Russian military operations in Syria. Was kind of past, so 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:29.320 I can't question for I'm promising for against the stuff. 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:42.800 Stuff uh as almost nothing effectiveness organization or one hour home. 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:52.040 We managed to entire winter on a couple of at 0:07:52.120 --> 0:08:03.240 least currently home. After he'd been seen doing this for 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.840 a while, members of a local anarchists self found this 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.920 person and started asking them questions, Hey, who are you, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.160 what are you doing? What do you think of this? 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.280 And that he was not specific about the individual political 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.520 questions they answered, and we probably don't need to get 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.600 into that. They invited him eventually to a building where 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.320 a number of them tended to gather and prepare for actions. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.160 In short order, they started organizing together. At the time 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.480 our source started organizing as an anarchist. The most notorious 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.800 recent action was the Kimki Forest conflict. In brief, Kimki 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.640 is a forest with a long histories and nature preserve. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.000 It's kind of outside of Moscow. It's so densely forested 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:41.920 that in the sixteen hundreds, and then in the early 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.000 eighteen hundreds, when the Russians were resisting Napoleon, it was 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.040 used by partisans and insurgents as a base of operations. 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.640 When the Bolsheviks took over, it was preserved to act 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.240 as a sort of open air therapy center for tuberculosis patients. 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.440 In the early two thousands, local city planners started to 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.680 advocate for a toll road to be built through the 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.000 middle of the forest. Their argument was that a large 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.760 amount of traffic passed through the Leningrad Highway and that 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.160 had caused huge amounts of air pollution in the city 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.040 of Kimki. Since the forest was protected by national environmental codes, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.840 turning it into a road was a long political process. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.560 Activists protested, arguing that it would be an environmental disaster 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.240 which spoilers. It was like anarchists in the United States 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.040 in the period before the Green Scare, Russian anarchists carried 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.640 out a series of occupation actions to try and protect 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:35.960 the wild lands. So the stand it was poor or 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:54.040 or the governance the cost orgastlands past or section oh 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:15.040 fascists one constraint trains. In the end, it was in 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.160 two thousand twelve Shortly after our source began participating an 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.840 anarchist demonstrations, the government carried out a major crackdown against 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.920 certain anarchist activists. They focused primarily on groups and individuals 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.080 who were doing things like making Molotov cocktails and engaging 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.199 in property destruction. Now our source participated in food not bombs, 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.760 and other non aggressive types of direct action, most of 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.360 which involved handing out food and supplies to people who 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.719 are helping them to get resources. He did not disavow 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.760 insurrectionary anarchists the kind of people who threw bombs, but 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.800 that wasn't the kind of thing he did, and he 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.240 didn't have a lot of connections with those people because 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.280 roughly a year after he started organizing as an anarchist, 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.079 most of them in his area at least got cracked 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.200 out on and either killed, forced out of the country, 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:03.440 or arrested by the government. This crackdown on insurrectionary Russian 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.720 anarchists led to an even more paranoid security culture among 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.520 those who remained. Our source and his comrades mostly distributed food, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.920 but they also provided support for a large number of 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.920 children whose families had abandoned them due to crushing poverty. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.440 Even though these things were not illegal, they had to 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.520 maintain intense security culture to avoid being part of future crackdowns. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:34.319 One of the first don't talk to anyone or a 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:44.400 structional companization commun don't care for the information, don't give 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:49.360 them infrestion means no one. Long standing tradition among Russian 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.079 anarchists was a sort of defensive isolation. People gave each 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.319 other as little information as possible about their real identities. 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.920 As a result, despite the fact that he has participated 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.120 in multiple protests since the invasion of Ukraine and people 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.080 have been arrested at those protests, our source insists that 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.040 he doesn't know if any of his comrades have been 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.040 taken into custody. Now. Some of this probably has to 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.160 do with the fact that he's not organizing in a 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.640 major city, um, but a lot of it probably has 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.800 to do with the fact that he just doesn't particularly 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.880 know any people by name. Poles, which are imperfect but 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.600 cannot be entirely discounted, suggest that most Russian civilians support 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.439 the war and their military. Even so, the scope and 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.000 scale of the anti war protests in Russia have beggared 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.120 anything from recent memory. Our source says that this has 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.839 actually helped to mitigate some of the despair you might 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.439 expect Russian anarchists to feel, given the Titanic increase in 0:12:41.480 --> 0:13:00.920 state repression from from there, just like, oh, come on, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:06.080 we can do it all everything and we'll just again 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.880 if it's will find us whatever. No, or there is 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.520 no despair at least we don't see it. The wants 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.960 of action, their words of preparation. From what I understand, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.400 or not only artists, but other rdical firms were gathering 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:28.280 in Russia or in Moscow, in Saint Pasbura obviously because 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.880 the most et center of everything be there, not not Carenians. 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:41.920 I guess, oh you some some even throwing like water 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:56.880 us really industries. So it's probably time that we talk 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.960 about autonomous action or a D. The Revolutionary Anarchist Federation 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.040 that our friend and his comrades are affiliated with a 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.920 D actually has members in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. It 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.640 was founded in two thousand two and briefly had affiliates 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.360 in Armenia before they disbanded in two thousand five. That's 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.760 a story in and of itself. A D advocates direct 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.640 action in order to quote create a tradition and basis 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.360 for a new humanist culture, social self organization, and radical 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:30.560 resistance against militarism, capitalism, sexism, and fascism. They consider the 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:35.040 existing government of Russia as entirely illegitimate. They refused to 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.120 take part in Russian electoral politics, seeing even left wing 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.040 opposition parties as essentially controlled by Putin and only existing 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.920 to provide a sham vision of choice. A D activists 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.560 call themselves the Autonomy and see their calling as twofold 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.400 to exist as autonomous, free individuals within an unfree system 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.520 and to spread revolutionary sentiment and weaken the state. Much 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.120 has been said in the West of Alexei Navalny, a 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.640 Russian opposition politician who, whatever else you might say about him, 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.920 is certainly not controlled opposition. He has survived an assassination 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.320 attempt by the Putin regime and is currently incarcerated after 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.840 leaving his exile in the West to return to Russia 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.920 and fight the sham case against him in court. No 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.200 one can doubt that Navalny possesses significant physical courage, and 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.480 it seems fair to say the man believes in what 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.400 he says. A D Activists, from what I have seen, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.600 do not fault him in his willingness to suffer for 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.040 his beliefs, but they believe that he is at the 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.400 very least deeply misguided. Navalny, they say, holds to a 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.120 fundamentally errant belief that Russia could ever be a parliamentary 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:42.040 democracy in the Western tradition. Their argument is that corruption, 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.240 investigations and electoralism are useless in Russia and always have been, 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.320 and from a historical standpoint it is difficult to argue 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.200 with these claims. Autonomous Action members do not support the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.960 Ukrainian state, and I have read articles from them where 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.920 they describe the conflict in the Dawn Bass, which simmered 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.320 for eight years before sploating into the current conflagration, as 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:07.320 two fascist paramilitary forces backed by two capitalist governments. However, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.960 they have been consistent for years that the proper stance 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.480 of Russian anarchists is to support the Ukrainian people against 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.840 aggression from the Russian state, before Putin commenced his broader invasion. 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.480 In February of this year, Autonomous Action published an article 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.160 with the title why we should support Ukraine quote Putin 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.560 is not just the gendarme of Europe, but the gendarme 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.400 of the whole world. From Syria to Myanmar. Whenever a 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.560 dictator tortures and kills thousands of his old people, Putin 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.120 is there to support him. There are no elections in 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.400 Russia anymore. Even the most moderate attempts to change something 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.720 results in criminal cases and persecutions. I do not believe 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.040 that the result of this yet another round of threatening 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.800 declarations and building up pressure is a full scale war. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.800 But as the conflict is not disappearing, a full scale 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.640 war may start after five to ten years, even as 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.120 a result of a cycle of escalation, even if no 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.680 one really wants it. And in case of a full 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.800 scale war, we should be on the Ukrainian side. As 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.800 Mala Testa said, for me, there is no doubt that 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.240 the worst of democracies is always preferable, if only from 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.600 the educational point of view, then the best of dictatorships 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.120 neutrality and a war between Ukraine and Russia would mean 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.720 neutrality in an invasion of a democracy by a dictatorship. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.520 Now our source concurs with the extant evidence that Russian 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.960 citizens still broadly support the war. As I stated earlier, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:50.119 nanton attacking Russia with no people don't know, he was 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.120 certain to acknowledge that there's still a great deal of propaganda, 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.639 largely pro NATO propaganda on the anti war side of things. 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.639 Given the information situation within his country, he admitted that 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.000 he'd had difficulty parsing some things out, while acknowledging that 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.160 his side also lacked perfect information, he felt that their 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.800 stance against the war was safe because in the end 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:17.440 it opposed blood letting. You can claim on some kind 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:27.080 of or the Western growing. Oh if even if you're 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.560 under some kind of work, even West Western is basically 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:37.480 a case as well, you still of this world on 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:43.280 your side because you don't want to. He did admit 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.359 that a number of people in his life, family and 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.639 close friends knew about his political sympathies, and he claims 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.320 that the outbreak of war and the massive futalitarian swing 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.040 Putin has taken over the last month have caused some 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.360 of these people to be more open to his beliefs. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:01.600 So I'm kind of opening for them. One people, one 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:08.159 of them people watch points or oh, my friends, do 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.760 you know what I want to kind of stuff what 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:16.200 I'm into, or as the war stone, or they just 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:23.200 came to me. However, personally, hey, you've been concurring for this, 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.800 so wint for years you've been telling us on us 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.200 or for years I thought you'd be annoyed and not understand. 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:35.800 You're right, What do we do? Oh, we don't have 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:41.080 people knowing about me? What what gives no? Seeing the 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:54.560 picture At the moment, the political situation within Russia is 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.119 truviously answered. All the inner of dubious sources have claimed 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.920 today palace coup is in the offing or has been attempted. 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.720 Some have even spoken of the possibility of a revolution, 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.760 or at least a massive protest campaign that forces Putin 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.280 from office. Our source did not consider that likely in 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.280 the unlikely event the government collapsed entirely, he was not 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.679 particularly optimistic about what might result. You mentioned the centralised 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:33.119 governments for you and there is no They're just that, 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:54.040 just the originals like Oh, it's He mentioned me that 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.320 a number of his loved ones had come forward recently 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.680 to ask what they ought to do. I asked how 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.399 he responded to that question. Right now, we try to 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.200 organize and help each other because there is a there 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:12.080 is a chance or currency local stuffing, and we'll just 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:19.359 need to survive. That's the first thing weak. So soft 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:25.080 organization and interactions are available than any currency or no. 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.880 For what I see it the way, Uh. Second thing 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.800 is that we need to use the training or start. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:42.280 I guess there's there's a term in English cause every 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:47.760 week don't or when you have all infrastructure. Basically for 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.960 now we need to have from enough folding of water 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:58.840 points we all can train even with the forums. He 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.520 particularly mentioned to the revolutionary importance of finding some way 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.040 to either smuggle or produce medical supplies and medications. He 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.520 knows one person who already had to flee the country 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.159 because his wife could no longer get the medicine she needed. 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.400 He mentioned the sanctions levied against Russia as a major 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.439 issue for regular working people, but when I asked what 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.520 he felt Western countries could do in this conflict, he 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.000 was actually quite focused on something else Entirely. He believes 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:27.000 the United States has access to high quality satellite images 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:28.840 of what happened in the immediate lead up to the 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.520 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin's government justified much of their 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:35.399 invasion on so called attacks from the Ukrainian government that 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.040 they claim it escalated against the separatist regions. Our source 0:22:39.080 --> 0:23:00.440 believes his government is lying about this, or many states 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:11.280 so here's the same thing, or yeah, we need to cope. 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:19.280 Of course it's been queen so it's I don't believe 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:24.760 that Ukraine or so being with let's say, less of 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:30.920 military or compared to Russia or not so she stuff, 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:40.480 So we didn't need those things coped published at least 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.959 maybe not as long as possible. Constan still point all 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:51.199 would at least it's helpful people see you get there 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:56.679 are points queer from its good. Since the invasion, it 0:23:56.720 --> 0:23:59.679 has gotten notably harder, but not impossibly hard for Russian 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.560 said to get information about the conflict that does not 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.520 come from the Kremlin. Are starts explained. How he does 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:08.720 it a combination of using VPNs and understanding the nature 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.200 of authoritarian propaganda. In short, even when the government is 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:14.399 lying to you, you can get an idea of what 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:17.359 the truth is by understanding what they want you to believe. 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:30.080 When work stuff all sources, what science, I saw it 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:38.760 South Korean side, Russia side, great side, Oh so stopped 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:47.600 as well. I don't really believe in me. Sal let's 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:55.520 see firsts because they are past they say, what's going to? 0:24:56.160 --> 0:25:00.960 What's they're trying to contain to? O? Or if you 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:13.280 have say Okay, let's this one. Uh. When Russian Ministry 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:21.320 of Foreign first selling or down the solution, and at 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:26.000 the same time we hear all the Syrians, Syrian or 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:31.720 mercenaries are going to rail for me, it means one 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:35.080 thing they want to us pull or the pointing to 0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:43.600 get some time so professional sources councils. He felt that 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:46.760 one way US activists could be helpful to Russian activists 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.760 was by continuing to document and study the different munitions 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.400 and tactics used by police in cracking down on demonstrations. 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:56.320 He noticed that Russian police used similar and sometimes even 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:58.520 the same weapons to the ones that the US police 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:02.560 used on crowds in the protests. He believes the documentation 0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:05.440 done to study these weapons is helpful to people all 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.840 around the world. He expressed some frustration at friends and 0:26:08.880 --> 0:26:11.560 colleagues of his, who, after years of failing to truly 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:14.480 grapple with the degree to which Putin had centralized power, 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:17.680 We're now fleeing Russia to avoid living under an increasingly 0:26:17.720 --> 0:26:24.919 totalitarian state. A swampy colleagues. I guess our radio whatever 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:34.480 he was trying to support me like stuff scoring all 0:26:34.760 --> 0:26:39.400 the sports cop Russians. Yes, if you into bonus, that's 0:26:40.000 --> 0:26:52.000 for him trying to blame him hence it and that's 0:26:52.040 --> 0:27:00.160 why against against the commers, he has decided to stay 0:27:00.280 --> 0:27:03.200 and to resist. While he has admitted to now studying 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:06.080 martial arts and military tactics, he did not have high 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:08.879 hopes for any kind of confrontation with the Russian state, 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:11.919 and as a generally peaceable person, he has decided that 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:14.000 he will continue to resist in the way that makes 0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:16.840 the most sense to him, by helping people and providing 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:19.119 them with things that they will increasingly need. Is the 0:27:19.200 --> 0:27:23.480 economic situation in Russia degrades further for me? How many 0:27:23.480 --> 0:27:34.399 people most kind of since constant sense for yeah, that's 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:42.920 for at least six years or one. Uh, but then 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:48.280 that once a thing about arcists and wishould I call 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.640 myself and you okay, before I call myself an alarchists, 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:56.080 then I should make once a more thing. Oh I 0:27:56.160 --> 0:28:00.280 need to before I don't know if him people, uh 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:09.280 gotta Checkay it could happen here as a production of 0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:12.200 cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 0:28:12.320 --> 0:28:14.760 visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check 0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:17.159 us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:20.240 or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:22.800 for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone 0:28:22.840 --> 0:28:25.560 media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.