r/worldnews • u/DownWithAssad • 5d ago

Russia sentences 15-year-old schoolboy to 5 years for criticizing Putin regime and war against Ukraine Russia/Ukraine

https://khpg.org/en/1608813775
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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

There was this interview with older man in Russia and he was asked why don't you protest. His response was "Why would I go to the barricades for these people waves around at the people passing by, they would happily report you to the government."

Russian people are a miserable bunch that would happily stab each other in the back. Its sad.

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u/ArkamaZ 5d ago

My partner's family are Belarusian refugees from the fall of the Soviet Union, and it's insane that a lot of them support Putin. I've no doubt that they'd sell out their own family if it came to it.

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u/HuckleberryTiny5 5d ago

My parents neighbour is Ukrainian man who moved in our country 30 years ago. His wife is Russian. You guessed it, this Ukrainian worships Putin. I don't understand it, not in the slightest.

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u/Otherwise-Ad-8404 5d ago

Ask your neighbour if he loves Pootin so much why hasn’t he and his wife moved to Russia? See what he says. 🤷‍♂️

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u/coltaaan 5d ago

I legitimately don't understand how you can live in the US for 30 years and be pro-Russia/Putin at this time.

So form of extreme cognitive dissonance, ig...

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u/Turtleturds1 4d ago

Consume a lot of fat right republican news like Fox Propaganda Network and it starts to make sense.

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u/DukeOfLongKnifes 5d ago

It is a hate based on social media groups. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine have been feeling threatened by Ukrainian ultranationalists(even in the minority).

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

Can you guess why? Russian is trying to destroy Ukraine and wipe them from history.

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u/ConsultingntGuy1995 5d ago

Nope, they are just imperialist fashists. Just today Russian military helicopter pilot on a propaganda channel bragged about how he reported a woman speaking Ukrainian in Ukranian Berdyansk. He proudly said she was arrested and sent to torture camp. Name at least one case when Ukrainians arrested someone for speaking Russian.

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u/Turtleturds1 4d ago

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. 

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u/Xenobreeder 5d ago

This is super bullshit, at least in my city. Lots of people speak Russian (me included when I feel like it) and nobody cares.

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u/dughorm_ 5d ago

It's more like, Russian nationalists in Ukraine have been feeling threatened by the tales of the Russian propaganda they watch.

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u/Verbose_Hamster 5d ago

Keep in mind that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a deeply traumatic time for all involved. And people have a tendency to only remember the good times: in their minds the bread queues, secret police, and daily repressions are minimised while the feeling of being part of a strong cohesive union that could go toe to to with the west is magnified.

Like how so many Americans voted for Trump because he promised to bring back the "good old days", your family probably look at Putin through that same lens.

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u/hanzo1504 5d ago

Also life in most parts of the Soviet Union was a lot better than in today's Russia.

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u/Embarrassed_Coast_45 5d ago

Can you please elaborate on this?

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u/Zanadar 5d ago

For a lot of places the Soviet Union was essentially a bottomless piggy bank which kept paying for things for ideological reasons rather than practical ones.

Once it was gone and that supply of "free"* money dried up, it was back to abject poverty for a lot of people.

The same ideology that had fed them had also denied them any sort of self-sufficiency, so they couldn't stand on their own without it.

*Terms and conditions may apply.

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u/MalificViper 4d ago

It also encouraged selling people out for the benefit of the state, so that mentality has obviously not gone away.

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u/betterwithsambal 3d ago

Yeah but most of those idiots woke up and saw the orange pos for what he is. russians are no where near as insightful or intelligent.

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u/str85 5d ago

OT but a scary part here is that this is where some of the Trump megalomaniacs are heading as well. Of their own free will.

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u/eaturfeelins 5d ago

Man it was the same in Cuba, still is. I remember we’d huddle over in the kitchen and close the windows and shutters and whisper whenever we wanted to discuss the regime or discuss buying beef (people were being jailed for selling and buying beef since the government owned it all), and one of us would stand by the back door keeping watch. Our next door neighbor was a snitch for the government police.

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u/maditqo 5d ago

the difference is, however, in Russia, you can be jailed for a failure to report someone the government will later convict

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u/Falcon_4L 5d ago edited 5d ago

Same applies in Australia, specifically New South Wales. It's a crime to not report a serious offence without reasonable excuse.

*Edit - for the down voters, google section 316 of the New South Wales Crimes Act.

For the lazy

CRIMES ACT 1900 - SECT 316 Concealing serious indictable offence 316 Concealing serious indictable offence (1) An adult-- (a) who knows or believes that a serious indictable offence has been committed by another person, and (b) who knows or believes that he or she has information that might be of material assistance in securing the apprehension of the offender or the prosecution or conviction of the offender for that offence, and (c) who fails without reasonable excuse to bring that information to the attention of a member of the NSW Police Force or other appropriate authority, is guilty of an offence. : Maximum penalty--Imprisonment for-- (a) 2 years--if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is not more than 10 years imprisonment, or (b) 3 years--if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 10 years imprisonment but not more than 20 years imprisonment, or (c) 5 years--if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 20 years imprisonment.

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u/yoingydoingy 4d ago

That's completely irrelevant, the issue is that discussing the regime is considered a "serious offence" in these places...

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u/youdoaline_idoaline 4d ago

We are so oppressed down here, might as well just become an authoritarian oligarchy, seeing as there's no difference between Australia and Putins Russia/S

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u/sailirish7 5d ago

Our next door neighbor was a snitch for the government police.

If this was known, how did these people never "disappear"? I don't mean this as an accusation, I'm just legitimately curious.

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u/Luke90210 5d ago

Dissidents who used to protest the Putin government largely gave up and left the country when the war started. They understood under wartime laws they would be wiped out. Men of fighting age would be drafted and sent to the front immediately. Everyone else could slowly die in the brutal prisons. Putin would not even pretend to be fair anymore.

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

Yeah I watched a doco about a poet that protested by telling his poem in public. He got 7 years. When they arrested him he was raped. They stuck a pipe up his ass. Threaten to rape his girlfriend but just beat her instead. After he was put in prison they arrested her as well even though she didn't do a thing. Horrible nasty place.

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u/Zilskaabe 5d ago

Yeah, and putin didn't do all that. Lots of russians support him.

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u/OpeningDimension7735 1d ago

The siloviki are psycopaths given power over others, and they earn attention and praise by their sadistic acts.  Dictator 101 - empower the worst to intimidate the many.

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

Yeah. your are completely right! Its not just him, that whole country supports his movement. Russian people are not to be trusted.

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u/CurrencyFit7659 5d ago

So, the guy and his girlfriend also support putin, right?

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u/Pixie1001 5d ago

Yeah, like lets not sit here pretending soldiers and police in western countries don't do fucked up shit as well.

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u/CurrencyFit7659 5d ago

Let's not pretend privileged kids in western countries are any better or smarter. All this "freepalestine" propaganda is identical to Russian propaganda about Ukraine, word by word, and so many people believe in it on the West it gives me a hope about my people - at least we have mostly older people who are weak for propaganda

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u/Necessary_Apple_5567 5d ago

Because lot of them died and another part jailed.

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u/FoobarGecko 4d ago

They didn't give up and left, they were exiled.

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u/Luke90210 2d ago edited 2d ago

Exiled means being forced out of your own country. Thats not Putin's style. He prefers to have you murdered (the old gunshot to the head before going out the window or poison) or imprisoned and then die in Mother Russia. When the war started so many young men fled the country to avoid conscription its unbelievable Putin's goons were actually helping anyone leave.

The protest band Pussy Riot defied Putin for years and went to jail for it. They left Russia too believing protesting under war conditions and laws was tantamount to suicide.

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u/juzzbert 5d ago

Orwellian

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u/hanzo1504 5d ago

JorJor Well

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u/10poundballs 5d ago

centuries of collective punishment baked into the culture

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u/Jackbuddy78 5d ago

That would be a charitable view but the reality is much less sympathetic. 

https://radaronline.com/p/russian-parents-sending-children-police-protesting-vladimir-putin-war-ukraine/

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u/Dedushka_shubin 5d ago

I am Russian and I live in Russia. I can confirm it is 100% true.

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

I hope you are on the right side and can escape. I know I'm right, I was with a Russian girl for 5 yrs. From what she said she hated the place. She was a model and Russian men treated her like trash. Western men treated her well.

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u/Dedushka_shubin 5d ago

Sounds strange. I worked as a photographer and a cameraman in the past. I know that it is impossible to achieve good result without cooperation with a model. So treating a model "like trash" is completely unprofessional. But sometimes it happens.

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u/espresso_martini__ 4d ago

You're thinking professionally. I'm talking about the average Russian man treating her like trash. She loved leaving Russia because men treated her differently.

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u/kosmokomeno 5d ago

Probably be better to say the Russian history is miserable. People are people

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u/yellekc 5d ago

Russian people are a miserable bunch that would happily stab each other in the back. Its sad.

Yep, I have run out of all sympathy for Russians at this point. Putin isn't the one sitting in command centers targeting apartments, he is not the one shooting or beheading POWs, he is not the one raping civilians. That is all regular Russians. They are not victims, they are the abusers.

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u/grchelp2018 5d ago

This is the case for all dictators.

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

I don't have any sympathy either. I went out with a Russian gf. She was nasty and so were all her friends, family and ever other Russian she introduced me to. I'm glad to have moved on with her.

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u/_DirtyYoungMan_ 5d ago

Not much different in every former Soviet state in Europe. Even in Hungary strangers don't talk to each other and when I asked why(I've lived in the US my whole life so I only spent summers and shorter vacations there) my cousin told me that it's just not part of the culture. When I asked my mom(grew up in Soviet Hungary) why, she told it's because back in the Soviet days you didn't know who to trust so you just wouldn't talk to strangers because they might report you to the authorities.

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u/espresso_martini__ 5d ago

Yes! that is not a way to live. I can say I hate Trump and no one is going to knock on my door. Freedom is everything. Unfortunately Russian people have no freedom and no will to fight for it. They are a wasted people.

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u/yogtheterrible 5d ago

Like crabs in a bucket. When one tries to leave it gets dragged down by the rest.

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u/ThiefMortReaperSoul 4d ago

I dont think you understand mind washing. You know the whole was was it, palvikos dog? experiment?

The entire nation is mind washed to misery. They dont see an alternative. They cant see an alternative. They'd rather live out the option they have than go against it. Its not the vibrant democracy you live in, where you go out with 5 people to a protest, and a bunch of people joins you agreeing or at least cheer you on. You end up fearing because , you fear if you dont report then protester, that you might also get nabbed along as an accomplice.

There are comments on the following video, explaining the same fear people had under soviet/russian iron fist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv60cFeRq8s

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u/MrsACT 5d ago

That’s the US if Donvict gets I

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u/Swapzoar 5d ago

What are they supposed to do?

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u/espresso_martini__ 4d ago

Grow a backbone and protest. It wasn't that long ago they protested (1991) when the USSR became just Russia. Since then Russian people have become weak, pathetic souls.

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u/Swapzoar 4d ago

Easy for you to say who won’t have to die for said actions

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u/espresso_martini__ 4d ago

Yeah isn't that sad when people have to die when they protest. Shows what a horrible place Russia has become. But in numbers they can't be stopped. It wasn't that long ago Ukraine managed to overthrow their corrupt government.

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u/Cdru123 4d ago

Yeah, I've also been disappointed by a lot of people around me

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u/Unique_Frame_3518 5d ago

I read this a different way. It reads as hopeful to me