Victoria Arnold. Tomsk musician's criminal trial to begin 15 March // Forum 18, 7 March 2023

7 March 2023. Victoria Arnold, Forum 18

URL: https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2814

RUSSIA: Tomsk musician's criminal trial to begin 15 March

The criminal trial of Tomsk Christian and musician Anna Chagina on charges of repeatedly "discrediting" the Armed Forces is due to begin on 15 March. She is being tried for social media posts opposing Russia's war in Ukraine, having already received a fine in 2022 for her poster at an anti-war protest which read "Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)". Tomsk Region Investigative Committee refused to discuss the case. The criminal trial of St Petersburg Orthodox priest Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov is due to resume on 10 April.

On 15 March, Judge Roman Zaynulin of Soviet District Court in the Siberian city of Tomsk is due to begin the criminal trial of Anna Chagina, according to the court website. If convicted, the 43-year-old Christian, a musician and teacher, faces a maximum three-year jail term or a large fine on charges of "discrediting" the Russian Armed Forces more than once in one year.

Chagina's first (administrative) conviction was for displaying a poster reading "Blessed are the peacemakers" at an anti-war protest in Tomsk in March 2022, just two days after the new offence of "discreditation" came into force (see below).

Investigators subsequently accused Chagina of posting anti-war materials on social media and charged her under Criminal Code Article 280.3 (see below).

Chagina's online posts included reposting an anti-war petition by Russian Orthodox clergy, online debates on the war from a Christian perspective and updates on the criminal prosecution of Orthodox priest Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov in St Petersburg. It remains unclear exactly which of her social media posts form the basis of the prosecution case (see below).

The Investigative Committee detained Chagina for one day after searching her flat in Tomsk at the end of November 2022. Since then, she has been under specific restrictions, including a ban on using the internet, and latterly a non-disclosure agreement preventing her from discussing the investigation. Witnesses in the case have also had to sign such agreements (see below).

"It was important for me to convey my position to people," Chagina told the Govorit Ne Moskva media project (which specialises in regional stories) through friends in December 2022, before she or they signed the non-disclosure agreements. "I am mentally prepared for the fact that the state will punish me for this. As far as I understand, I face either a prison term or a huge fine. I'm not afraid of either" (see below).

Forum 18 wrote to Tomsk Region Investigative Committee to ask why expressing religion-based opinions on events in Ukraine should be considered "discreditation" of the Russian Armed Forces, and on which specific social media posts the case against Chagina was based. "Taking into account the interests of the investigation, it is not possible to answer your request," it responded. It added that all information about preliminary investigations that it is legally permissible to make public is published on the Investigative Committee's website. The website has given no information on Chagina's case (see below).

The Investigative Committee has not explained why Chagina and witnesses in the case were required to sign non-disclosure agreements (see below).

Meanwhile, the trial continues at St Petersburg's Kalinin District Court of Orthodox priest Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov on charges of disseminating "knowingly false information on the use of the Armed Forces". On 6 March, he was brought to court for his latest hearing from St Petersburg's Kresty-2 prison (where he has been held since his arrest in June 2022). The judge adjourned the hearing until 10 April because Kurmoyarov's lawyer Luiza Magomedova was unwell (see below).

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Tomsk: Fine for "Blessed are the peacemakers" poster

Christian Anna Sergeyevna Chagina (born 29 November 1979), a viola player and music teacher from the Siberian city of Tomsk, opposed Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.

Her first offence of "discreditation" took place on 6 March 2022 on Novo-Sobornaya Square in central Tomsk, where about 100 people had gathered to protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Chagina held a poster she had made: "Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)".

Police detained twenty of the protestors, including Chagina, and charged them under the new Administrative Code Article 20.3.3 ("Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation"), which had entered legal force two days before.

A judge at Tomsk's Soviet District Court convicted her under Administrative Code Article 20.3.3 on 12 March 2022 and fined her 45,000 Roubles, about three weeks' average local wages.

"I consider myself innocent of any charges, and no matter how tomorrow's hearing ends, I remain calm," Chagina commented on her VKontakte page on 11 March 2022. "To call for peace, to call for it with all my heart, to call on everyone's open heart, to call for reason, to sow what is good and eternal is my human and professional duty."

"I sincerely believe that what is happening with our planet is in our hands. War starts the moment we forget our responsibility. When we think that 'it will manage itself somehow', 'it will work out', 'it will pass, 'you can wait it out', 'it does not concern me', 'nothing depends on me'."

(Chagina also attended protests against the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksey Navalny in 2021, and against the "partial mobilisation" in September 2022. Before a concert in March 2022, she spoke out against the war on stage and played a Ukrainian song.)

According to Tomsk's Soviet District Court's written decision of 12 March 2022, seen by Forum 18, Chagina "took part in an illegal public event in the form of a rally, the purpose of which .. was to form a negative opinion among bystanders and the population of Tomsk regarding the special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation".

"Aware that those gathered were united by a single plan to undermine confidence in the decisions of the state authorities of the Russian Federation to conduct a special military operation to save Donbas," the court decision added, Chagina "shouted slogans on the subject of the event, held a poster of a similar content, and, not responding to the explanations of police officers about the illegal purpose of the event or their demand to disperse, thereby committed an administrative offence".

In court, Chagina did not deny holding a poster, but argued that she had been carrying out an individual picket (which is legally permitted without official authorisation). She said in her written statement that she had made the "Blessed are the peacemakers" poster herself and had displayed it in order to "express her civic position".

Chagina appealed unsuccessfully at Tomsk Regional Court on 8 April 2022.

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Tomsk: Criminal case

During 2022, Anna Chagina continued to post material on her page on the VKontakte social media site opposing Russia's war in Ukraine.

On 8 March 2022, Chagina reposted the full text of the anti-war open letter of 1 March 2022, ultimately signed by nearly 300 Russian Orthodox clergy. On 12 May 2022, she wrote that she had herself signed human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov's change.org petition against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Pavel Levushkan is a Lutheran pastor and commentator from Latvia, who is based in Riga but has previously served in Tomsk. Nikolay Karpitsky is a religious philosopher from Tomsk who now lives in Slovyansk in Ukraine. On her VKontakte page, Chagina linked to a YouTube video of the two men discussing the theme of hatred ("How to process your hatred, find cool resolve [obresti kholodnuyu reshimnost] and remain yourself") as part of the series "War from the point of view of religion" on Karpitsky's channel. Chagina also reposted other videos from this series.

Chagina's posts also include supportive comments about other Russians prosecuted for "discrediting" or "disseminating false information" about the Russian Armed Forces, Karpitsky's descriptions of wartime life in Ukraine, comments on the war from the Vatican, and media articles about Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov (currently on trial in St Petersburg for opposing the war – see below).

State media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked Chagina's VKontakte page on 3 September 2022 at the request of the General Prosecutor's Office.

Chagina "considers herself a Christian, is interested in religious philosophy, and insists that Russian Orthodoxy has nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox Church and its support for the war with Ukraine", the media outlet Govorit Ne Moskva (which specialises in regional stories) summarised her position.

In summer 2022, Chagina had begun to notice that she was being followed. After her arrest in autumn 2022, the investigator remarked that all the local police already knew her, Govorit Ne Moskva noted in December 2022.

On 23 November 2022 (according to court documents seen by Forum 18), Tomsk Region Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Chagina.

According to Govorit Ne Moskva, the Investigative Committee's grounds for initiating the case appeared to be some of Chagina's comments on her VKontakte page, as well as her reposting of texts by Pavel Levushkan and Nikolai Karpitsky. It remains unclear exactly which social media posts form the basis of the prosecution case.

The Investigative Committee searched Chagina's home early on 30 November 2022. The investigators "behaved calmly – they did not turn the flat upside down", according to Govorit Ne Moskva, which communicated with Chagina through friends before their non-disclosure agreements. The officers "carefully examined books, sheet music, and musical literature" and confiscated electronic devices.

Investigators detained Chagina for one day after the early-morning search of her home. She has since been at home under a night-time curfew and restrictions on communication.

At her interrogation, Chagina refused to answer questions and stated that she did not plan to plead guilty. The Investigative Committee charged her the same day under Criminal Code Article 280.3, Part 1.

On 1 December 2022, Tomsk's Soviet District Court upheld the investigators' request to have Chagina placed under specific restrictions. According to the court document, seen by Forum 18, these comprise a 10pm-6am curfew and bans on sending and receiving correspondence ("including letters, telegrams, parcels, and electronic messages"), using the internet, and attending large-scale public events. She was freed from detention in the courtroom.

Forum 18 wrote to the Tomsk Region Investigative Committee to ask why expressing religion-based opinions on events in Ukraine should be considered "discreditation" of the Russian Armed Forces, and on which specific social media posts the case was based. The press office first directed Forum 18 to the federal-level Investigative Committee in Moscow, but later stated on 27 February that "Taking into account the interests of the investigation, it is not possible to answer your request". It added that all information about preliminary investigations that it is legally permissible to make public is published on the Investigative Committee's website.

Chagina's case is as yet not mentioned on either the Tomsk Region or the federal Investigative Committee's news pages.

The Investigative Committee has not explained why Chagina and witnesses in the case were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

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Tomsk: Criminal trial due to begin on 15 March

Anna Chagina is due to appear in court on 15 March on charges of repeatedly "discrediting" the Russian Armed Forces. She is the fifth person to face criminal prosecution for opposing the war on the basis of her religious beliefs, and the second to be charged under Criminal Code Article 280.3, Part 1 ("Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, [and] maintain international peace and security").

Soviet District Court in Tomsk registered Chagina's case on 2 March 2023, according to its website, assigning it to Judge Roman Zaynulin. The court has scheduled the first hearing in her trial for 15 March. Investigators have had Chagina and witnesses in the case sign agreements not to disclose any information about the investigation.

"It was important for me to convey my position to people," Chagina told the Govorit Ne Moskva media project through friends in December 2022, before she or they signed the non-disclosure agreements. "I am mentally prepared for the fact that the state will punish me for this. As far as I understand, I face either a prison term or a huge fine. I'm not afraid of either."

If convicted, Chagina could be imprisoned for up to three years or fined up to 300,000 Roubles. Even if she receives a fine, she may not remain undisturbed thereafter, because "she is unlikely to give up on expressing her [anti-war] convictions openly", her acquaintance Maksim Yevstropov (founder of activist art project Party of the Dead) told Govorit Ne Moskva from outside Russia, adding that new charges could be brought for "the slightest reason".

Nikolai Karpitsky. November 24, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and seventy-fourth day of war

It's exam time. Both my students have blackouts, then I. We catch moments when we can connect. If you look at it from the outside, the situation is absurd: there's a dirty dog sitting in a bunker, doing harm to millions of people, confident he's the most important person in the world. For some reason, in books and films, villains are much more interesting than positive characters. Perhaps the artist simply has more opportunities to put his talent into the complex and controversial image of the villain. Only here in life the real villains are primitive to disgrace. Yesterday, such a villain was going to defeat NATO, threatened with a nuclear war, and today he is playing dirty tricks in impotent rage. What a petty nature! He is not even worthy of a feeling of disgust, those who believe him are disgusting.

Suddenly the lights flickered and then went out, which means that it was not just a planned shutdown, but an accident, and it could be for a long time. It's nighttime, and the only thing left to do is to meditate.  When it's dark, damp and cold outside, and you find yourself locked in the darkness of home, you discover the simple truth that you can't wait for the future, for example, like when they finally give you the light, otherwise reality will become unbearable. You can just feel alive in the present moment, whatever it may be, without waiting for anything. It's hard to do, because when you're sitting in total darkness, you can't help but wait for the light to come on, and your thoughts tend to drift off somewhere else. However, true freedom is only possible when you build such a self-sufficient state within yourself regardless of external circumstances. Because life is the present moment, and the constant preoccupation with waiting for something is the denial of the real for the sake of something that does not yet exist. It is this denial that makes life unbearable.

Still, our conditions are still tolerable, we have gas, water, electricity is regularly restored. I know from those who are under occupation that in other cities it is much harder. For instance, in the occupied Lisichansk there is no electricity or water at all, although the gas supply has been restored - it is necessary for the occupiers themselves, who have settled in other people's apartments. Only elderly people remained in the city, who were afraid to go into the unknown. The occupiers announced that they would confiscate any apartments if their owners did not present themselves with property documents within a short period of time. At the same time, it is difficult to get into Lisichansk even from the direction of Luhansk, from time to time it is completely closed for entry and exit. However, the soldiers do not even comply with these formalities - they can break into any apartment, not paying attention to the owner. Some apartments were broken into several times.

If you drive away from the frontline deep into the occupied territory, somewhere beyond Donetsk and Luhansk, it is quiet there, and the locals have no idea what the shelling looks like. The locals are mostly women, as the men are either already mobilized or hiding, afraid to go out. Unless in case of an extreme necessity early in the morning or late at night, as they can be stopped and sent to the front at any time. And it’s dangerous for women to walk around, especially for girls - there are drunken soldiers who can make sexual advances. This distinguishes the cities on the other side of the front from our frontline cities. In the summer, when the front was only ten kilometers away, there were also a lot of military men in Slavyansk, but you feel safe around them. At no time did I see drunken soldiers or hear them swearing, which is the usual thing in the occupied territories. Riding through the city on my bike, I constantly met girls walking alone or mothers with children. In the occupied cities, people don’t just walk around, they go only on business, and mostly where it’s crowded.

Life in such cities seems to have stopped in 2014 and is slowly degrading. The roads have not been repaired, in some places they have become completely impassable. Young people are infantile in their masses; a twenty-year-old is psychologically equivalent to a fourteen-year-old. There are no special places for them to meet and communicate. Many do not have the slightest idea about life in the free territories of Ukraine a few tens of kilometers away.

There are many pro-Russians among the locals, and even round-ups of men cannot change their minds. They can admit that, yes, it somehow turned out badly: people just went to work, and were caught and sent to the front, but they immediately correct themselves that they are being protected from the Nazis, therefore have to tolerate. They live in their nightmare world and are absolutely persuaded that it cannot be better. When they are told about a normal life in a free Ukraine, they simply do not believe that this is possible, being convinced that the Nazis walk the streets with swastikas there, and don't listen to eyewitnesses. I remember in the Soviet Union people also believed that there was poverty in the West, while their own life in poverty, with shortages and queues, was perceived as the only possible world, which could not be better. Back then, too, people supported the government because they believed that there was no other way.

Despite everything, there are a lot of adequate people in the occupied territories who support Ukraine. What surprised me most from the stories of those who are from there is that they can immediately see who is for Russia and who is for Ukraine. These are anthropological differences that are immediately apparent. For example, when you see a person for the first time, you immediately understand that you can say, "Glory to Ukraine!" despite the fact that for any careless word in a public place you can be arrested and thrown in the basement.

If a person is some kind of unpleasant with the seal of aloof unsociableness, behaves as if everyone owes him, then he will be for Russia anyway. In fact, this is the seal of that hellish world, which he perceives as the only possible reality. Because of this, he is unable to adequately understand normal people. At first I wanted to call it the loss of the ability for social communication that allows us to understand each other. Thanks to this communication we perceive the world adequately, distinguishing what is possible from ridiculous fakes and propaganda. However, they communicate perfectly well with each other, and it is we who seem to them to be unsociable in their perverted perception. It would be more correct to call it a loss of the ability to communicate on the basis of empathy. They can communicate, but they are incapable of feeling the interlocutor, and for this reason they become unpleasant. Instead of empathy, they have such a common emotional wave, which is produced by the mood of their hellish world. On this wave, they understand each other perfectly, but at the same time they cease to understand normal people. In contrast, normal people who are for Ukraine easily recognize each other by the empathic connection that naturally establishes between people, makes them open and inspires a sense of trust.

Nikolai Karpitsky. December 13, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred ninety-third day of the war

Fifty-second post since the war started. I sleep or work, guided not by the time of day, but by spontaneous blackouts. We are lucky - winter is warm. While it's thawing, I rode my bike around Slavyansk. Cars on the roads as in pre-war times, now again you have to be careful when driving. Sometimes you can hear the shooting, but not to compare with how it was in the summer. There are hits to Slavyansk, but more often - to Kramatorsk. 

Now the whole burden of the war falls on Bakhmut. It is right near it where the invaders concentrated all their forces. Well, it's still very hot near Avdiivka. If Bakhmut is abandoned, the next line of defense will pass near us. But I don't believe it will be abandoned.

I thought that after fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers would throw all their forces at Ugledar, since a breakthrough in this sector would allow them to enter the rear of the Ukrainian troops near Donetsk. However, the Russian command is guided not by a strategic perspective, but by Putin's mood. They need to rehabilitate themselves for the defeat near Kherson, and now it is easier for them to attack than to explain the need to change another offensive direction.

The Bakhmut meat grinder has been going on for several months, and the occupiers are paying for every hundred meters of advance with thousands of dead. And this without any strategic perspective, solely for the ego of just one person. The battle of Bakhmut resembles the Verdun meat grinder of World War I, and will end the same way: it is here that Russia will use up its last offensive potential, after which Ukraine will be able to liberate all its lands. This will end the first stage of the war and begin the second, remote, by mutual firing of missiles and kamikaze drones. No matter how much we want the war to end as soon as possible, it will continue in any case until the total collapse of the necro-empire.

Soldiers are thrown into the attack on Bakhmut in continuous waves, regardless of losses. This is their necrophilic offensive tactics. The more people die, the more space will be freed up for the new mobilized. They are deliberately sent to death.

In 1991, the KGB allowed the democratic revolution to win in Russia in order to get rid of the control of the CPSU. Surely they already had a plan to come to power and restore the totalitarian empire. They correctly calculated that there are enough military and economic resources for this purpose. But people's consciousness is changing, becoming indifferent to the old ideologies. Therefore, the imposition of imperial ideology after the KGB coup in 1999 led to its mutation into necro-imperialism.

I think when in 1991 the chekists were making plans for revanche, they could not even imagine that in three decades their protege would go further, aiming not at conquering, but at destroying the neighboring peoples. Putin himself said that the purpose of the special military operation is the denazification of Ukraine and showed in practice that this word means the destruction of the Ukrainian cultural consciousness, the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian ethnic group.

If for the totalitarian imperialist the main goal is power, for the necro-imperialist it is destruction. And there are three reasons why the mass consciousness in Russia accepted necro-imperialism so easily: indifference to any political ideologies other than the ideology of finding an enemy, fear of the complexity of the world, and lumpenization.

In this context, an event that I only learned about yesterday is symbolic. My friend, Maxim Evstropov, was put on the federal wanted list. I've known Maksim since he was a student, we worked in the same department with him for a while. Formally, he is being persecuted under the article on insulting the feelings of believers. Maxim expressed what he thought about Patriarch Kirill and his support for the war. This criminal article is false, because it is not used to prosecute for insulting religious feelings, but for dissent and protesting against the regime. Because if it really was used to prosecute for insulting religious feelings, then first of all they should have brought to justice Patriarch Kirill himself, Sergei Ryakhovsky, Talgat Tatjudin, Bhakti Rasayana Sagar Swami and other religious authorities. From a religious standpoint, any use of the authority of religion to justify Russia's actions in Ukraine is an insult to God and introducing their fellow believers into demonic temptation.

In fact, they want to put Maxim in jail for something completely different - for the fact that he created the Party of the Dead, known for its public actions. He created it in 2017 in response to an attempt of the authorities to appropriate the dead and use them for their political purposes, such as voter fraud or events like the Immortal Regiment.

Of course, there is epatage in the party's actions, but Maxim is not the kind of person who would joke about death. For the necro-imperialists, death is the last point of triumph of their undivided power, because they fear even their own victims, as long as they are alive. Therefore, necro-imperialists look at death from the angle of their right to kill and see it as a way to free themselves from the fear of the complexity of the world. However, Maxim, from his life experience, knows death from the opposite side - from the side of an unjustified senseless tragedy.

Maxim has his own philosophical position, different from mine; he can tell about it himself, but I will only say how I see his actions from my standpoint. I believe Maxim has the right to speak on behalf of the dead, for his existential experience allows him to remain himself both among the living and the dead. In the actions of Maxim, death ceases to be what necrophiles seek - a way to simplify the world and confirm their absolute power. Necrophiles in power want to turn people into nothing, and he let the dead refuse, at least in a symbolic form, to be victims and turn into nothingness. Therefore, even in such a symbolic demonstration, necrophiles feel danger.

Most of all, necrophiles are afraid of being among the dead themselves, and Putin is ready to send everyone to death in order to prolong his life at least a little. Thus, he has already condemned the living to death and perceives them as dead, and therefore is also afraid to be among them, fencing himself off with a giant table. It turns out that he has no place either among the living or among the dead.

Nikolai Karpitsky. We need the idea of de-imperialization. 15.06.2022

Source: 24/02/2022. Очевидцы / 15.06.2022  https://ochevidcy.com/filosof-karpitskiy/

Nikolai Karpitsky is a philosopher and public figure from Tomsk. He spoke out against the wars in Chechnya. And against communist ideology. He defended the Bhagavad-Gita in court - remember that resonant trial over the book? Nikolai Karpitsky has been living in Ukraine since 2015. For the past three years he has been living in Slavyansk, on the outskirts of which he bought a small house three years ago. Since February 24, 2022, he has been conducting the "Chronicle of the People's War". Fragments of it, along with a story by Nikolai Karpitsky, are in the "Eyewitnesses" project.

Photo from the personal archive of Nikolai Karpitsky

February 24, 2022. Ukraine. The first day of the war. My first post since the war began. I wrote here on Facebook on February 9 that Russia has enough power to launch a first crushing strike against Ukraine and destroy much of its economy and military capabilities, but Ukraine has enough power to handle an invasion. So now I believe that the first crushing blow won't work either..."

- On February 24, I was in Kiev. I woke up in the morning and looked out the window: a siren was blaring. I took the train to Slavyansk. I started chronicling what was going on day by day. My first reaction was: could we withstand a blitzkrieg or not? Because the enemy always plans a blitzkrieg, not a protracted war. If we hold out, then we can talk about Ukraine's chances. After three days of war it became clear that the blitzkrieg was not successful, and the second phase of a terrible bloody war began. Which will inevitably result in the extermination of the civilian population.

"February 27, 2022. Ukraine. The fourth day of the war. The spring thaw. Huge losses of Russian equipment are also due to the fact that it is impossible to advance in the fields now - abnormal heat, the equipment will simply sink in the mud. We have to drive on the highways, getting into ambushes. The Ukrainian army withstood the first blow and now the initiative slowly begins to pass to it...".

- When the offensive began, a picture of the world began to take shape. For the first three days, the Russians wanted to surgically remove the government. There had been no targeted bombing of residential areas yet... But when they had to evacuate refugees from Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, Izyum, and Lisichansk, it became clear that buses with refugees were being deliberately shelled. Then the nature of the war became clear. Wars can be civilized and waged to destroy. It is clear that the war in Chechnya and the war in Syria were uncivilized. Cities were destroyed there. But here the hope was that this invasion was purely political. That they would block cities, military units, but there would be no targeted destruction of the population. I had such hope for three days... Now people in general understand who they are dealing with. They understand that this is a war of annihilation. Even those who used to support the separatists are horrified by what is happening.

"March 1, 2022. Ukraine. The sixth day of the war. The situation can be imagined as if a huge boogeyman had attacked a teenager, who, though badly beaten, managed to resist. The big guy realizes that he can't win by leaps and bounds, and now, having evaluated the situation, he's going to attack again. He is in fact a berserker, and can feel no pain, and is incapable of reasoning. If we were talking about an ordinary dictator, albeit a sadist and a scoundrel, but a pragmatic one, then after inflicting substantial losses on the invading army, it would be possible to negotiate peace with him. But we are dealing with Putin, who proceeds from a holistic picture of the world, in which everything is reversed - evil is perceived as good and good as evil. This is a worldview for which I do not know the scientific name, but in Christianity it is called Satanism..."

- I stayed in Slaviansk to describe the situation from the inside. I try to write not so much about events, because everyone writes about events. I try to explain their context. And to write about people's experiences. How to experience it, how to relate to it. When you are involved in events, you awaken a special historical intuition, allowing you to feel what is real and what is impossible... I decided to stay in Slaviansk in order to be able to feel how events are happening. Right now, as we were talking, there was a bang.

«March 14, 2022. Ukraine. The nineteenth day of the war. There were over a hundred people at the service, four times less than usual. The preacher compared Ukraine fighting for independence to the exodus of the Jews persecuted by the Pharaoh. Faith in God greatly strengthens faith in Ukraine’s victory. Then they brought refugees from Severodonetsk — many students, children, the elderly. The oldest woman was 82 years old. They fed them, settled them in, and the next morning they were taken to evacuation trains. So, every day, a hundred people <…> Today, the holidays ended, and I gave a lecture on “Philosophy of Human Communication.” At the beginning of the lecture, we exchanged information about who was where and in what conditions. A student from Lisichansk listened to the lecture from a bomb shelter, so communication with her was interrupted. I dedicated the lecture to the topic of lies, including the one that led to the war. While I was working with the students, a message came that one of the buses of the church I was in yesterday was shot at on the way from Izyum…».

- I live among Ukrainians, I am emotionally connected to them. I walk the streets, I go to meetings. There is a Protestant church here that deals with refugee removal. I meet with them, look at their sentiments. Of course, in Kiev the start of the war was a shock, people couldn't understand and accept the reality. It took them some time. And some reactions were naive and strange. They could sit in the subway all day long. But clearly, if the war is for a long time, you're not going to sit in the subway all the time. You would have to get used to it and live a normal life. Despite the bombings and rockets. When I came to Slavyansk, I found that people here were already used to it. They had already seen the war and had a calm attitude. Pragmatically.

"March 24, 2022. Ukraine. Twenty-ninth day of war. When war broke out, the world collapsed. The inevitable happened. It was as if an asteroid had crashed into the earth, and overnight the whole familiar world disappeared, along with daily communication, work, problems, and little joys. Only emptiness lies ahead. After a while, a new shock. It turns out that it is not just emptiness, but destruction, suffering and death. After all, it is not only the army that is at war with the occupiers...".

- As for medications, you can buy simple drugs, but not every pharmacy has them. There is always something missing. The assortment in the stores has decreased by three times. But everything you need is there. At the bazaar, the number of people has decreased by 5-10 times, but people are there and trade. In addition, there are various humanitarian missions. They bring aid. There is a problem with public utilities. Since the water intake is in Mayak settlement, which is on Northern Donets, where Russians are advancing, it is impossible to repair it. The city has been without water for the second week. Some have wells, somewhere water is brought. But there is no opportunity to use water freely now. As for electricity, the high-voltage wires get broken and have to be repaired. Sometimes you are without light for a day or two. The most difficult thing is the uncertainty, because there is no Internet, no communication, and you don't know what kind of danger threatens you.

"March 29, 2022. Ukraine. Thirty-fourth day of war. The Moscow Tsardom, and later the Russian Empire, constantly waged wars of conquest, justifying it with the super-valuable idea of gathering lands. This idea was inculcated in school, and many still accept it by default. The essence of this idea is the denial of the value of independent life outside of Russia. History has often seen empires, dictatorships, tyrannies, which, like Russia, waged wars of conquest. Of course, this is an evil, but an evil that is social, human, but not yet religious or metaphysical. When the military and Chekist coup took place in Russia in 1999, the ideology of gathering land mutated. If before the independent life of the peoples was devalued, but was not considered evil, now the entire surrounding world, which resists inclusion in the sphere of influence of Russia, is perceived as hostile and subject to destruction ...

- I try to assess the danger. And I assess it this way: I just ignore rocket attacks, I don't pay attention to sirens at all. I have a basement in my yard, but it is not equipped. Sitting there is not an option at all. Being hit by a missile is like being hit by a car in a city with a lot of traffic. There's no getting away from it.

"April 6, 2022. Ukraine. Forty-second day of the war. There came a time when the cannonade began to calm me down. I can already distinguish by ear when ours are beating the occupiers. Judging from what I heard yesterday, the fighting on the way to Slavyansk is desperate...".

- Ukraine's victory in the war depends on Western weapons. The Soviet weapons, which were there, have unfortunately run out. The first victories of the Ukrainians were due to the fact that there were still enough weapons. Now they are used up. But the Russian reserves are not limited... If there is a lend-lease, everything we need is here. The Ukrainian army is mobilized, it is superior to the Russian army, it is not surrounded. And no one will throw soldiers as cannon fodder. In the event of a Russian takeover of the whole of Ukraine, this entire army would go to the partisans. Of course, Russia would lose, but at a huge cost to Ukraine. If weapons came, there would be no need to pay such a price.

"May 28, 2022. Ukraine. Ninety-fourth day of the war. Yesterday there was no light, wrote until the laptop battery died, today finished the work. Therefore, the first part relates to yesterday. This week the Donetsk region was finally cut off from gas. In the morning we got water, so we could take a shower. At first it feels strange to be in the shower during shelling or the roar of a siren, but then it becomes indifferent. The lights are still out. I write until the battery runs out. I drove around the city. There are not many people, the stores are out without lights. I like to ride my bike out of town, it's the most beautiful places there, you can't give them up to orcs. But you can't go there now, there's a war going on. There's a lot of banging going on. I cooked potatoes on the fire in the yard - the first time, no experience yet, but I think I'll get used to it...".

- I know that in Russia there were calls to go to rallies - it's the same as in the Soviet Union to rally against the Afghan war ... But everyone in their place can sabotage unconstitutional decisions. And the second point. Without a clear idea of what to strive for, the goal cannot be achieved. This idea has not yet been formulated. Replacing a bad president with a good one will not change anything. We need the idea of de-imperialization. A rejection of the imperial form of government. This idea needs to be communicated. It is quite possible and realistic.

Anna Chagina. Putin Is a Demon Who Stole My Country

They are being repressed for reposting my texts in Russia now. Here is an interview with Anna Chagina, who is accused in a criminal case for "discrediting the army". 

Nikolai Karpitsky

On the early morning of November 30, the security forces came to the home of Tomsk musician and teacher Anna Chagina: this was how she found out that she been charged with the criminal offense of “discrediting the army.” Chagina had been detained at an anti-war rally on March 6. In September, the Prosecutor General’s Office blocked Chagina’s page on VK over anti-war posts, which have now served as the grounds for the criminal charges against her under Article 280.3.1 of the Criminal Code. The maximum penalty is up to three years in prison.

– Which posts on VK did they deem “discrediting”?

Anna Chagina: I have only read the arrest reports so far, not the stuff in the criminal case file. As far as I understand, the incriminating posts are the ones featuring texts by the Christian thinker Pavel Levushkan and the philosopher Nikolai Karpitsky, as copied from Facebook and posted on my VK page, with the authorship of the texts indicated. Karpitsky is a philosopher who lived in Tomsk and headed the Tomsk Anti-Fascist Committee, but now lives in Ukraine. He talks about necrophilic imperialism and about why Russians behave this way, both in war and in peacetime. Plus the comment “No war!” which I wrote below someone else’s post on VK.

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Nikolai Karpitsky. November 12, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and sixty second day

Today, euphoria from the liberation of Kherson. Tomorrow we will be horrified by the scale of war crimes that will be revealed in the liberated territories. The day after tomorrow will begin the everyday life of a new phase of the war. And in Slavyansk they gave gas, launched trolleybuses. Finally, I can hear the sound of trains that hardly ever run when the enemy was ten kilometers from us. The stores are already so crowded that the usual queues at the cashiers appeared. Groceries are still expensive, but flour and potatoes appeared at pre-war prices. From time to time I met calls for negotiations and peace with Putin from seemingly decent people. I have a question for them: did they really want us to winter here without heat and water under constant shelling? Or that people continue to be captured and tortured in the occupied territories?

In the Battle of Kherson, the Russian army proved to be a strong adversary, and the evacuation to the left bank was carried out quite professionally. However, the Ukrainian army demonstrated not just professionalism, but the highest level of strategy and tactics: first, they managed to lure the best parts of the invaders to the left bank and, thanks to this, inflict an unexpected defeat in a completely different place - in Slobozhanshchina, and then make the enemy flee from Kherson! It’s unbelievable, especially since the enemy always had the advantage. It was impossible to achieve a better result with the forces at Ukraine’s disposal.

However, I still hoped that Putin would not let the army escape and would expose it to complete defeat. I thought so on the grounds that he is guided not by military, but by political logic within his distorted picture of the world. After all, this explains why he previously transferred fresh forces to the Kherson bridgehead, and when things didn't go well, declared the Kherson region part of Russia, began mobilization and threatened with nuclear weapons. Never was the world as close to nuclear war as it was this fall. In any case, he firmly demonstrated he had no intention of surrendering Kherson under any circumstances. It is all the more difficult to assume that he timed his decision to surrender Kherson to the G20 summit. Most likely, there was a threat that the army would begin to retreat without permission.

Now, after the liberation of Kherson, we can evaluate the results of the battle. Since it was impossible to provide a full-fledged supply of troops on the bridgehead, it was futile to hold it. 

Military logic demanded withdrawal, taking up defense along the Dnieper, and transferring the released troops to another, more promising area where they could be properly supplied. Therefore, the withdrawal from near Kherson should have strengthened the Russian troops. This would have been the case if they had been withdrawn immediately. But now the retreating troops are frayed and demoralized, and, in addition, lost a lot of equipment. It will take a month to replenish them with the mobilized and bring them to combat readiness. At the same time, the AFU's brigades are freed up, replenished with trophy weapons, retained their strength, and encouraged by the victory. And they can be put into combat at any part of the front right now. In addition, it is now possible to put all exits from Crimea under fire control, and in the future, to force its demilitarization even without forcing the Dnieper, as happened with Serpent Island.

Leaving Kherson for Putin is politically disastrous. Even if the mobilization, on which such hopes were pinned, could not stop the advance of the AFU, it means that the war is pointless and all the casualties are in vain. Besides, if the army has imposed on Putin the decision to retreat, then he can no longer rely on it. In fact, he does not rely on it, so he created an alternative tonton-macoute army led by Prigozhin and Kadyrov. They are fiercely hated by the entire Putin elite, the military and special services, which further undermines the power.

In order to keep control of the situation under these conditions, Putin needs success on the front by all means. But where? There is already a continuous offensive on Bakhmut, but there the AFU are successfully grinding hordes of criminals from the Wagner PMC. There is another option: to create new units from the mobilized, to put there as commanders the veterans who managed to be taken out from near Kherson, and then throw them on the Ugledar. If successful, it would be possible to go into the rear of the Ukrainian group near Donetsk and then reach Bakhmut. But it takes time to prepare for such an offensive, and the AFU will not wait. If they take the offensive themselves near Ugledar, they will cut the only railroad line along the Azov region. Then all the positions of the invaders in the south of Ukraine will crumble. That is why Putin took an unprecedented step of publicly humiliating himself, calling Ukrainians "partners," and begging for a temporary truce.

I can't say how the military action will develop further. On the one hand, Putin always has some reserves, but on the other hand, the AFU always acts unexpectedly. In the long run, the defeat of Russia is inevitable, and then the threat of losing power hangs over Putin. Probably, at the last moment, he will issue an order to use nuclear weapons, which the military will refuse to execute, leading to a coup. It is possible that he will not have time to give such an order, because he is already  destroying his own vertical of power. In particular, he has already abolished the state's monopoly on violence by creating a private army of criminals. Moreover, he delegated the pardon power, which is the exclusive privilege of the president, to these same criminals.

All Putin's elite are deathly afraid of the tonton macoutes, so sooner or later they will unite with the army and the FSB to destroy them. Prigozhin and Kadyrov understand this very well, so the seizure of power is the only way for them to physically survive. This is what they are preparing for right now. With the most thuggish, such as Zolotov and Surovikin, they are trying to make an alliance, they are trying to replace those like Lapin with more convenient ones. 

 

If, as a result of further defeats on the fronts, Putin loses control over the situation, the war with Ukraine has every chance of escalating into a civil war within Russia. The combat-ready army units will have been destroyed by that time, the mobilized guys will rebel everywhere, and Prigozhin will have a huge reserve at his disposal - colonies of prisoners. Of course, the majority of criminals are not ready to go to die in Ukraine, but they will agree much more willingly to rob and kill their own compatriots on the territory of Russia with impunity. This means that the nightmare of Bucha and Mariupol can be repeated in any Russian city.

Suppose the military and the FSB manage to eliminate Prigozhin. What then to do with this huge army of criminals? Disband? Then they will be free to use their military experience to create gangs. Send them back to the camps? But they will resist to the end, and we are talking about many tens of thousands of people. This means that the war will be a war of annihilation, as no reconciliation is possible. 

The world community will not tolerate the chaos of a civil war on the territory of a nuclear state. Naturally, no one will attack Russia, but to protect the local population, an international coalition may well be created to introduce peacekeepers.

Along the way, the problem of nuclear weapons on Russian territory will be solved. All those who now support Putin and shout that NATO attacked Russia in Ukraine will be the first to beg the West to bring in peacekeepers to stabilize the situation in Russia. However, the peacekeepers cannot stay in Russia indefinitely, they will have to hand over power to someone. If power is transferred to any body involving a single decision-making center, be it the president or the parliament, the imperialists will sooner or later take revenge, and the war will repeat itself. To prevent this, power will have to be transferred to such a federal body, which only harmonizes decisions made in the regions and not in one center. In this case, the regions themselves will not allow the revival of the empire, at least for selfish reasons, because it is unprofitable for them. 

It’s just one of the possible scenarios. I only described it so that people can understand what choices they can make in a crisis. In fact, the future is unpredictable.

Nikolai Karpitsky. November 5, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and fifty fifth day of war

The impression of the planned blackouts. Getting dark early, the house is cold. I’m wearing three sweaters and a hoodie. I don't notice the cold, as I'm immersed in work. Suddenly everything goes down, and I find myself cut off from the world. The darkness obduces me along with the cold. How long it will be like this, nobody knows. In summer there was no light for several days, but then it was warm and the nights were short. I could sunbathe and ride my bike. Now it's cold and damp at home, if you sweat, there's no place to dry and warm up, so riding a bike became problematic.

Now all I can do is to crawl under three blankets and wait. I feel like a bear in a den, it's dark and warm, but it's slowly getting colder outside. The only thing left to do is meditate. The consciousness sinks into a half-slumber and disperses, allowing me to think in several directions at a time, to ponder the various topics I was about to write on. Then, imperceptibly, I find myself on the other side of sleep, but not far from the reality of wakefulness, so that at any moment I can return. It would be nice to wait out this terrible winter that awaits us in this way. Like a bear. I wonder if bears are also dozing in the den, or are they completely out? Or maybe they live a brighter and more fulfilling life in the world of dreams.

Suddenly the light came on and I'm working on the computer again. There was no light for only three hours, fortunately, the temperature outside is above zero, you can live. It was just a warning about what awaits us in the winter. Iran entered the war on Russia's side, and we will be hit by Iranian ballistic missiles in winter. These are not primitive shaitan-mopeds, they are difficult to intercept. So this winter will be the hardest since World War II. With such terrorist tactics against civilians, Putin wants to force Ukraine to capitulate. But that is impossible. Better to freeze than to submit to a necrophile. I believe that no negotiations with Putin are acceptable. He is a criminal, and if we enter into negotiations with him, we thereby legitimize him as a state leader.

In order for Ukraine to hold out, it is necessary to hit back at missile launchers and military industry facilities. This requires missiles that will reach military facilities behind Russia's lines. People in Ukraine are now very angry and dream that in response to the destruction of the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, the Russian one is destroyed as well. Like, an eye for an eye. Emotionally, I understand them, and I myself would like those of my acquaintances in Russia who support the attack on Ukraine to experience all that we are experiencing. However, Ukraine is a democratic state based on the rule of law and will never deliberately target civilian objects in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Another thing is the military infrastructure in the rear of Russia, which is a legitimate military target. If Ukraine does not strike back, it will not be able to protect civilians from Russian missile terror. And to keep us from freezing in winter, we must convey this understanding to the Western public, because Ukraine is now protecting the entire West, so it has the right to count on the supply of missiles that will allow to protect its inhabitants.

Nikolai Karpitsky. October 30, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and forty-ninth day of war

After the enemy was thrown back from Slavyansk, the city is coming back to life. There is water, they promise to fix the gas supply, but so far the houses are cold. There are more cars and more people on the streets. 

Cannonades are not heard for a long time, however, there are occasional single explosions. The night before last, there was a series of five explosions, the previous one - of two. It's like that everywhere in Ukraine now. But today it seemed to be quiet.

A lot of classes, I have no time to write anything else. I teach classes on the Internet from home. I've got a message that my colleague, professor Mikhail Logvinenko, died as a warrior. One of the best professors. I remember him passing my candidacy exam brilliantly. Now, in my close circle of acquaintances, there are those who died at the front. This war in Ukraine has affected everyone, very soon it will affect everyone in Russia, and there will not be a single person whose relative or friend wouldn't die in this war.

The situation is difficult. The counterattack on Izyum and Liman was successful despite Russia's superior military potential. Now that the occupiers have saturated the front with mobilized men, it is harder to fight, and all those analysts who name the dates and directions of the next successes are irresponsible. A real military analyst can assess the current situation, but will not predict the course of the war. And there is a request for forecasts. As a result, we get such a picture. He sits at home, somewhere in Germany, a humanitarian, reads reports, and then, on the basis of simple induction, begins to write forecasts on Facebook. If someone's troops, for example, have advanced in some direction, then they will continue to advance, surrounding everyone and capturing everything. 

And it turns out that he is not assessing the actual military situation, but the hypothetical one that has developed only in his head. It looks as if an amateur undertook to comment on a chess game of masters: “You see, he won back the pawn, which means he plays very well, and if it goes like this, then he will win back the bishop, and then, you see, it will come to the rook!”

The essence of analysis is not to predict what will happen, but to assess the current situation. Critical analysis means that we reassess the correlation of factors in each new situation, without adjusting them to already established ideas or expectations. This distinguishes an analyst from a propagandist who rejects even such a simple induction and takes as truth only what corresponds to his picture of the world. A simple induction is when, for example, we see a successful offensive of the Ukrainian army, and on this basis we conclude that it should also continue to advance, liberating city after city. But as soon as expectations diverge from reality, accusations of “treason” and “agreements” immediately begin. The principle of conformity to one's own picture of the world is when, for example, someone believes that the Russian army is invincible, and therefore interprets all its defeats as cunning maneuvers, without doubting that it continues to win even now. And there are such people, too!

It is irresponsible to predict the course of a war, as it depends on free will and innumerable factors that cannot be taken into account, but one can analyze the already existing situation to see what prospects it opens up. Accordingly, we can see that Russia has no strategic prospect of victory, while Ukraine does. The course of the war may be unpredictable, but this will not change the overall perspective. Paradoxical, but true: Putin's only chance after the February 24 invasion was to quickly lose the war. This would allow him to retreat, retain power and prepare for a new attack. Instead, he began a long war of attrition. This means that, after defeat, Russia will never regain its power enough to threaten its neighbors, and its very existence is highly questionable. As it is now, it will definitely no longer exist.

The military situation is now as follows. The most combat-ready occupant units are locked in the Kherson bridgehead.  Putin is bringing in fresh forces, hoping to turn the situation around and go on the offensive, but it is very difficult to do so when the entire bridgehead is under fire. On the other hand, the bridgehead was turned into one solid fortress, and it cannot be taken head-on, and the gap in the defense is no longer found. Thanks to this, the invaders managed to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive near Kherson. And here again, the paradox. The tactical failure of the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson is already turning out to be a success at the strategic level. The rapid liberation of Kherson would free the occupiers from the need to keep there the best forces that they could redeploy to other fronts, gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper. If not for Putin's stubbornness, they would have done so long ago, and we would have been in a lot of trouble then. The more Putin drives his troops to the Kherson bridgehead, the more his frontline sags. For the Ukrainian army, this is the most advantageous situation when all the main forces of the enemy are concentrated on a small patch from which they cannot deploy, exposed to continuous shelling. In fact, this is the decisive factor that determined the turning point in the entire war. Mobilization helped to deter the advance of the AFU, but only temporarily, because while the Russian army is being replenished by untrained mobilized men, the Ukrainian army is receiving modern weapons. 

Of course, Putin can mobilize endlessly and will eventually begin to conscript women, but each new wave of mobilization will face an increasingly equipped Ukrainian army. You can't win this way, but you can postpone defeat. In fact, mobilization is a conveyor of death. So far it is in the process of being fine-tuned, but it'll soon be turned to full power. Many are frightened by this escalation and call for negotiations and peace, but I think that even peace will not stop the mobilization. However, negotiations with Putin are impossible anyway, so this is all empty talk.

The situation in the world is changing so that Russia has almost no chance for the future. Supporting Putin has become collective suicide. I just don’t see how, after all the crimes that Russia has already committed, it's possible to maintain a pan-Russian national identity. However, it is not for me to decide, but for the next generation, which will be ashamed of the parents who betrayed their children. Besides, the other day China finally established a monarchical dictatorship. This means that very soon China will require full control over Siberia and the Far East. Unlike necro-imperial Russia, China has enormous resources, and no one will stand up for Russia. 

Let me fantasize a bit. Let’s say Yeltsin did not appoint a successor. There would have been no explosions of houses, and then Primakov would have come to power, in his worldview very close to Comrade Xi. With huge petrodollars, he would have built an empire as powerful as modern China. But, apparently, the world could not withstand two such empires, and providence willed that Putin destroy Russia.

However, Russia did find an ally from its weight class, Iran, which joined its side in the war against Ukraine. Archaic empires based on tradition were replaced in the 20th century by totalitarian empires based on ideology, such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Today's Iran belongs to this second type of empires, which in the 21st century have also become archaic.

Russia, on the other hand, is a necro-empire, the third type that arose in the 21st century. Iran's alliance with Russia completely discredits Iran's ideology, since, from the standpoint of Islam, Putin's worldview is demonism. This leads me to believe that in reality the government in Iran has replaced traditional Islam with pseudo-Islamic ideology.

The Iranians are already killing civilians in Ukraine with their kamikaze drones. This means that Iran is taking part not only in the war against Ukraine, but also in Putin’s special military-terrorist operation against peaceful Ukrainians. It follows that the Iranian authorities are just as war criminals as the Russian and Belarusian ones, and therefore must share their fate.

Piotr Kaszuwara (in Polish) and Bradley Woody (in English) talk to Nikolai Karpitsky: Together we are strong. Sloviansk, September 10, 2022

Nikolai Karpitsky. Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason. Interview 08.07.2022

Nikolai Karpitsky (1968) - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Philosophy. He completed an internship at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Latvian State University (1989) and at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University (2004), worked at the Tomsk Research Center for Human Rights (1996–1997).

He defended his Ph.D. thesis "The Dialectics of Human Being" (1995) and his doctoral thesis "Transcendental Premonition as a Phenomenon of Human Subjectivity" (2004). Lives in Slavyansk.

What do you see as the fundamental meaning of the current war?

For Ukraine, this is a war for the existence of the state, culture and people. There is no economic or political reason for Russia to wage war. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason, using the Maidan events as a pretext. Now Russia has launched a large-scale invasion also without a reason.

This means that the real causes of the war lie in the Manichaean picture of the world and are of an irrational metaphysical nature. The essence of this picture of the world is that it requires the obligatory presence of an enemy in the world, and if there is none, then it is created and inherent evil is attributed to it.

In relation to the enemy, any moral principles are canceled. Any good done to the enemy is considered evil, and in accordance with this, the entire system of ethical values is turned upside down, good and evil in it change places.

The authorities in Russia attribute evil to the entire West as a civilization, and the conquest of Ukraine is only preparation for a big war with it. Therefore, the war has an existential civilizational character.

How would you define the essence of Russian imperialism historiosophically and metaphysically?

The archaic Russian imperialism of the Third Rome is ordinary, because there were many empires in history, but their time has passed. The revival of imperialism in the 20th century on the basis of the Manichaean understanding of evil led to its mutation and the emergence of totalitarian imperialism in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The goal of a totalitarian state is to conquer the world in order to free it from evil, which was seen either in social and class nature, or in national and racial. The second mutation of imperial consciousness on the scale of society occurred with the coming to power of Putin and the special services, but it began in the bowels of the Cheka and the NKVD, which perceived the killing of innocent people as a universal method of simplifying the social situation.

From the position of archaic imperialism, power is needed for prosperity. The attitude to the surrounding world as evil turns archaic imperialism into a totalitarian one, from the position of which power is needed for the sake of power. Fear of the complexity of the world turns totalitarian imperialism into necrophilic, i.e. into necro-imperialism, from the position of which power is needed for destruction.

What will be the consequences of the war and the fate of civilization?

Russia will inevitably lose the war, but since the society in it is infected with necro-imperialism, if the colonial system of government is preserved, the war may repeat itself. Either a new dictator will come to power, or the democratic forces will temporarily win, but then the dictatorship will be established in the next political cycle.

The transition from a presidential to a parliamentary republic will not solve anything, since a single center for decision-making and resource allocation will remain. The West sees an existential threat in the collapse of Russia or in a civil war, and therefore can support moderate authoritarianism in it as a lesser evil.

The only way out is if the whole world unites and forces Russia to abandon the colonial governance structure. This means that the distribution of the budget, the appointment and removal of heads of law enforcement agencies should be handled by a federal body consisting of heads of regions elected in free and competitive elections.

Even if imperial sentiments reign in Russia, the heads of regions will still be forced to negotiate among themselves in order to defend the interests of their own region, which will switch their attention from geopolitics to domestic politics and make Russia safe for its neighbors.

URL: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/russia-invaded-ukraine-reason-mykola-karpitsky-phd-irina-mirochnik?trk=pulse-article_more-articles_related-content-card

Source in Russian: Huxleў. 08.07.2022