10 – 14 April 2025
by Anna Karetnikova
Source: Facebook
10 April 2025
I wanted to keep the vow of silence I once made, but I don’t think that by sharing the competent and balanced opinion of Daniil Konstantinov, who knows what he’s talking about, while refraining from getting into different individuals, I am breaking my promise. This concerns something I, too, wrote about earlier: the fact that there is no code of ethics for the political prisoner, that there is a concept of good and evil and each time it’s a complicated choice. And this invented ‘code of ethics’ should definitely not be derived from criminal traditions and notions, to say nothing of confusing the two.
Daniil Konstantinov is a former political prisoner.
Daniil Konstantinov [10 April 2025, Source: Facebook]: “On the subject of the latest (in order) scandal over political prisoners, or more precisely, female political prisoners.
“First. Nowhere in the world does there exist a single set of rules of conduct for incarcerated political prisoners. No one has ever developed, discussed, or approved such a code.
“Second. There are elementary notions of decency characteristic of our fellow countrymen by force of our country’s tragic and disaster-filled history. In accordance with these very general notions, you are not supposed to inform, help the administration suppress other people, assist with torture, and so on. At the same time, to a certain extent the ban on informing is relative. For instance, what should a political prisoner do when he learns about plans for a murder, hostage taking, or terrorist act? Let’s ask ourselves this question after first putting ourselves mentally in the political prisoner’s place. How does one act in light of one’s notion of decency with regard to information you have learned about an actual violent crime being planned? Especially against people who don’t deserve it. Try to picture this dilemma and you will immediately understand how complicated it is in fact to try to follow certain prison camp traditions.
Third. In places of incarceration there are ‘thieves’ rules’ in effect, but believe me, you’d better not try to follow them. You wouldn’t be able to anyway, and you wouldn’t want to try once you have a full understanding of what they mean. You wouldn’t actually plan to ‘knock down a whore’ when you happen to run into him ‘in the valley’, would you? You wouldn’t ‘take’ from whoever the thieves tell you to take from, would you? You wouldn’t ‘pile on for all’ or ‘for the play’, would you? You wouldn’t really want to become ‘tramps’, ‘wannabes’, or ‘thieves’, would you? And even if you did want to, you wouldn’t be able, because you don’t meet the starting conditions for being accepted into the ‘family’. For instance, most of your life you worked honestly, which is impermissible for the ‘black ilk’. Or you served in the army, thereby becoming a ‘machine-gun snoot’ (don’t ask what that is). Or you told the organs about a crime committed (in that case, you’re in a bad way in general). You were a ‘mug’, a witness and that sort of thing.
“Most important is maintaining your human dignity, behaving decently (inasmuch as possible given the conditions), and not doing anything underhanded.
“But leave the ‘rules’ to those who live by them, rules that refer to an absolutely specific circle of people who live by their criminal trade.”
Source: Facebook
10 April 2025
And here you are… the intelligentsia! Asking for a dictionary! We have to start from the basics. Here this document has come to you—and you have to follow it immediately. Don’t use a garrote in fights… and so forth. I really like the part about ‘don’t form an opinion on the basis of what just one side says’. That wouldn’t hurt a few journalists.
Don’t be lazy, read it through, please. This is a version of the code of rules that is proposed in that world and that have interested everyone so suddenly. I will satisfy that interest. About the ‘bitched’ and all of that. I deplore the AUE [Prisoner Way United]. Why do I need this article? I am posting here the code that I usually present for familiarization just to my students in the appropriate course. For reference, let’s all of us know what we’re talking about. There are some pretty funny rules here. There are ordinary ones. There are ones similar to modern laws with their cute qualifications. But are we prepared to live by these rules?..
I beg your pardon for the obscene lexicon, but that’s not the point; the stable designations containing a specific meaning are.
A note. This is for men. There is no such document for women.
Source: Facebook
10 April 2025
Meanwhile, we are now down one political prisoner. Very quietly, without political fuss or muss, they exchanged Ksenia Karelina, a citizen of the United States as well, who had been sentenced to 12 years of penal colony for donating a small sum to the account of Razom for Ukraine on the day the great war began. She flew to Russia and last August was convicted of state treason. In exchange for her, Artur Petrov, a businessman I know nothing about who had been detained on Cyprus, at US request, returned to Russia.
One can only be happy for Ksenia. It’s wonderful that she’s free, but it cannot be ruled out that this is how exchanges are going to be conducted: person for person insofar as Putin and his circle need certain people. It’s very Trump-like. He doesn’t need any ‘ballast’, any ‘charge’. A deal for the sake of a deal. One for one.
Naturally, this is no reason to despair and stop working. On the contrary, while understanding that miracles are rare, we should support everyone who has ended up in the system’s hands because no one is going to do this besides us, and everyone should live to see their release.
There are a great many political prisoners, and besides them there are those whose prosecutions contain obvious political hallmarks. Today, Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial opened this database for public viewing. The base contains more than three thousand people. I’ll put the link in the comments. Maybe you’ll recognize someone and help the project with information. Or you’ll find someone who wants to help someone, to write.
Source: Facebook
11 April 2025
Yesterday, Vitaly Krivoshlyk, who was sentenced to 12 and a half years of imprisonment for state treason in the form of espionage, was recognized by the Project as a political prisoner. Inasmuch as he was living in neither Moscow nor Petersburg but in the small town of Maisky in Belgorod Oblast, we might not have learned anything about his fate. But he was brought to Moscow for a short time for some kind of retrial there, and another prisoner who was in the remand center for political reasons talked about him. This made it possible to gather information and declare the Belgorod entrepreneur a political prisoner. Any information is priceless. Thank you to everyone who has helped!
The corpus delecti here is that during the first days of the invasion this old guy took a photo on his phone of moving troops. And naturally, he sent it immediately to the enemy, Ukrainian intelligence. Because to the FSB, all Ukrainians are spies, even your own relatives sometimes. I think if I were to see lunacy like moving tanks, I would take a picture with my phone and send it to someone. True, I don’t know who. Maybe god in heaven.
Idel.Realii ran a good article about this story today. The link is in the comments.
Source: Facebook
11 April 2025
As I had suspected, something foreign has been happening to me ever since I was forced to go straight from prison to France. I look out the window: this definitely is not Russia! A totally different landscape.
But the Justice Ministry really ought to have guessed sooner. The UFSIN [Federal Penitentiary System Administration] recruited me when Memorial, of which I was a board member, was already a foreign agent. So this was a complete infiltration! For five years an agent of a foreign agent sat in session in the administration’s guiding contingent, a terrible story!
Thank you to everyone who has spoken kind words and words of solidarity. There’s nothing special to be happy about here, but there isn’t to be sad about either, probably. I don’t know how much I’ve lost effectiveness since the time of my departure. I’d like to believe I haven’t. I can say perfunctorily that being declared a foreign agent is a recognition of my service, but this is probably more obvious to an outsider—whether I left in vain or not, and whether there is any benefit from what I am doing now. I hope there is.
I’m not about to put up a plaque. I hope that for me and those close to me this will not bring terrible consequences. I will work as before and talk about prison. All this will prove useful for the beautiful prison of the future. I am an agent for no one except the Era of Mercy in its various understandings, and what officials wrote there has nothing to do with me. They dug up the very term ‘foreign agent’ from the days of Stalin and the Gulag. I’m against the war, for freedom for political prisoners, against repressions, for a reformed prison, for humanism and common sense. That’s it.
And why they’ve designated me like this—that I don’t know. They probably read the post about me getting a foreign passport. 
(Here I am as an agent in the fourth remand centre during the pandemic because I worked in the library there. :))
Source: Facebook
13 April 2025
Somehow when you watch the videos showing the aftermath of the rocket strikes on Sumy, your sympathy dulls for the Russian synchronized swimmers whose holiday was spoiled in Egypt… :(((
Propaganda really is an amazing thing. We keep killing and killing them and their children, while they spoil our girls’ holidays!..
And it does work…
Sumy, I grieve. 
Source: Facebook
13 April 2025
In our day, it’s better to say nothing at all, or god forbid do anything. If you don’t say anything or, for instance, post cute pictures, memes, and sometimes undisputed truths, you get a reputation as a nice, nonconfrontational person. Not with the Russian regime—they are in their own information bubble. And you definitely shouldn’t do anything. At all.
Say, for instance, if she could have foreseen the consequences, would Evgenia Berkovich have invited Valeria Zotova to perform in the penal colony’s amateur play? (In no way am I saying that she did invite her, but couldn’t she have? Why not? In no way am I Evgenia, but I can put myself in her place and imagine perfectly well that I might invite her. If she didn’t agree, she didn’t, that’s her business.) But foreseeing the consequences, I wouldn’t have. Oh, to hell with these kinds of discussions, I’m sorry I got into this…
But say, for instance—this is me continuing to speculate—I were the poisoned, imprisoned, and then exchanged politician Kara-Murza. And everyone was so concerned about my health and said, Save him! Help him! They would even free me because of that. And that, like a fool later, I gave certain speeches, knocked on certain doors, foreseeing that every word of mine could be ripped from context, had its quotation marks removed, be turned upside down, the whole shebang? I’d have rested on my laurels!
And again. I am not Kara-Murza, and I might have a very different position altogether on the issue, and I think that Russians can kill anyone, and not give a fig, in the sense of—for money, yes, and on that level there’s nothing to distinguish Russians from their brother Kalmyks and Buryats… It’s just that even speaking Russian, I’m so scared I don’t put things together very well, I screw up other things like that, and like-minded people go on to curse me in general down through the ages. What do I need that for?
It’s nice when everyone likes you. Now is not the time, evidently, when very quietly, after everything, you can whisper in his ear, ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but this is a delicate topic here…’ or ‘Look, everything you said is okay, I know you were trying to do your best, but the next time maybe you should adjust your emphasis a little?..’
It’s not nice when you’re trying to do your best and you get the works. Better to shut your mouth and stop moving. Maybe people won’t slam you for being idle and starry-eyed in view of your past services. But if you make a peep, you’ll definitely get slammed. Sometimes quite unexpectedly and underhandedly.
But if you don’t say or do anything, the bombs will keep falling. They might fall even despite our attempts to save people and the world, we aren’t omnipotent. But don’t we have to try? Make a mistake (or don’t make a mistake), subject yourself to attacks (deserved or not)—but speak, but act.
It’s very sad when people try to ferret out and intentionally blow up any supposedly evil intent and plan in people who obviously could not have them. I understand why this is so, but I call anyway if not for unity then for common sense. The missiles are flying, the bombs are falling. The enemy is known.
Source: Facebook
14 April 2025
I’m sorry, but the golden freedom so long awaited has been postponed for a great many.
Dmitry Peskov, the president’s press secretary, has reported that the Kremlin is not considering an amnesty in honor of the eightieth anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Oh, and how people look forward to that every spring… This one especially.
As Kartapolov said, though, ‘Today, those who are in places of incarceration and who love the Homeland have a fine chance to prove they do by signing a contract with the Defense Ministry. That’s all it takes today, when the country is waging an SVO [special military operation]. Everything else is the work of the devil’.
The Victory doesn’t work anymore, it’s broken. We need another one. The only releases are through the ‘SVO’.
Source: Facebook
14 April 2025
I put the link to the video in the comments. Ninth graders shot a video where they discussed the ‘SVO’. Shot it two years ago, by the way. The school principal informed on the ninth-graders. They were fined, and two years later, when they turned 18, each one was imprisoned for two and a half years. Now they are certain to be rehabilitated into worthy citizens.
It’s nothing new, but sometimes a video is more powerful than words. Watch them listening to the verdict and saying goodbye to their parents before heading off to be rehabilitated. Makes an impression.
Yes, the Project considers everyone prosecuted under the illegal article on ‘fake news about the army’, including Egor Starshinov and Kirill Smirnov, political prisoners.
But how awful…
Source: Facebook
Translated by Marian Schwartz
