8 – 12 January 2026
by Anna Karetnikova
Source: Facebook
8 January 2026
They are saying that French citizen and political scientist Laurent Vinatier, who was charged in Russia for failing to report himself as a foreign agent and then for espionage, has quietly, without any fanfare, been exchanged for Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, who had been detained in France at the request of the United States and accused of cybercrimes. Both of those exchanged are already back home.
All in all, they could have asked for someone else to be thrown in as well – a basketball player alone is a considerable trade. But apparently global trends no longer favour package deals… a pity. No, I’m absolutely delighted for Vinatier. But somehow it all looks very bleak for political prisoners holding Russian passports. Even so, I keep believing in miracles and in the idea that nothing is in vain.
Source: Facebook
11 January 2026
Today on a favourite morning show of mine with Kirill Martynov, I heard him say that the RDK [Russian Volunteer Corps] does not represent Russians, does not represent emigrants, and cannot be considered an opposition force, even though it makes such claims.
It made me think. And, actually, it isn’t even really about the RDK (because I don’t want to reduce the conversation to ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’), but rather, let’s suppose there’s some hypothetical, ideologically ideal military unit that’s fighting in the war on Ukraine’s side and forms part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Does such a unit also not represent anyone and is it unable to represent anyone, simply because it’s part of the AFU? But why? Because there are irreconcilable differences between the Russian people and the Ukranian military? After all, being under command and representing someone are completely different things. You could invent plenty of differences, but are there really any between the AFU and anti-war-minded Russians? I’m not sure. I would appreciate hearing some opinions.
There are anti-war emigrants who donate to both the AFU and to the RDK as well as to the Free Russia Legion. Worse still, there are people who did this from inside Russia and are now political prisoners. Moreover, there are political prisoners – God willing, not hundreds – who are imprisoned for trying to leave the country and join the AFU, the RDK, or the Legion (we don’t really know how many of them were coerced by the FSB, but that’s not what’s being discussed right now). So would these people, who have clearly expressed their opinion through their actions, really not be represented by a good, virtuous unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine? Why not?
It was also said that this is because the activities of a combat unit are not political. Fine. But what I don’t understand is: what kind of activity is political right now? And who is even taking part in it? (I won’t even talk about Russia now – full respect and praise to the human rights defenders who continue to work there – but it seems to me that political activity, in the sense of power struggles, is largely performative.) And who is taking part in politics in exile? Where are they fighting for power, within which structure, and over whom? Granted, PACE has at least appeared on the scene, but even there it’s not elections, it’s selection. Personally, I admire journalists, political scientists, experts – and again, human rights defenders. But what political struggle for power is actually being discussed here? What political activity? It seems to me that we are mostly talking about activities of a discursive nature. And why can’t those who are fighting with weapons in their hands take part in such activities if they happen to find the time?
I’m sure I’m missing some key argument – please point it out to me.
Source: Facebook
11 January 2026
Iran is, in some ways, an unfortunate sibling of Russia in terms of fate. Another attempt. The world is so complex, and blood is always red, but it’s hard not think about it now.
And in the photo, a greeting from the past: Me and Sergei by the Iranian embassy in Moscow. Which attempt was it, what year?…
Source: Facebook
12 January 2026
What a curious thing public opinion is (I suddenly find myself thinking, not being a specialist in this field and picking up on all these sorts of things purely by intuition; for specialists, my ‘findings’ are of course something to laugh at). So, an immigration officer shoots a woman. The discussion at first develops rationally: some side with the woman, some with the officer, but the argument revolves around whether he had the legal right to do so or not. A legal dispute, naturally, not without a hint of political bias.
Then it emerges that the woman was a poet, a mother, she had a wife; the deceased turns out to be good, kind, close to us, and generally wonderful – just a shade less than an angel, or maybe not less at all. (At this point all of this starts to make me a little uneasy, but everyone seems to like it.) Then there’s a slight pause – it feels almost deliberately drawn out, so that admiration for the deceased can properly take root – and then comes the counterblow: oh no, she was a paid activist (whatever that’s supposed to mean), her older children were taken away from her, and she and her wife allegedly used to stub out cigarettes on the younger child.
These are the kinds of trump cards that get laid on the table. Now go ahead and try to prove that someone like that shouldn’t be shot. Disappointing!
But there was no need to have been enchanted in the first place. The dispute isn’t about what kind of person she was, but about whether the police officer had the right to shoot or not. The argument is purely theoretical anyway and based on insufficient information, but what else can we do? Still, we probably ought to stick to a strictly legal approach, rather than involving as many of our personal likes and dislikes as possible into the assessment of the situation.
…Although it’s impossible to escape it entirely. I remember old news reports about the dispersal of protesters in pre-war Russia, with headlines like: ‘Police beat a woman who was just passing by in the square!’ – the main emphasis being that she really was just a random passerby. But if, God forbid, it later turned out that she actually was an activist, then things somehow became awkward, as if they had been told a lie: oh, so she wasn’t random… so she was one of those… well, then she kind of brought it on herself… (and her poetry, apparently, isn’t any good either).
(Well, one could still try to flip the situation: suppose it suddenly emerged that the immigration officer had done something truly, truly awful about ten years ago – say, aggressively harassed some woman – and then maybe the wind would change again. But that’s not what the argument is about for me.)
Source: Facebook
Translated by Annabel Pedgley
