Aleksandr Podrabinek

29 October 2025

by Aleksandr Podrabinek

Source: Facebook

The Speaker of the State Duma – Vyacheslav Volodin – has made a proposal for ‘foreign agents’’ pensions to be paid into special accounts where it will be withheld from them as they reach retirement. In short, to pocket it. He gave the following explanation: 

‘Someone who betrays Russia can walk around Paris and still get a pension from the Russian Government. We need to put their pensions in these special accounts. If they want it, they can come to Russia for it and get their just desserts. Maybe they won’t even need their pension since where they’ll be working – and we all know where I mean – they feed you for free.’ 

That last bit about being fed for free is untrue; the prisoners’ food is paid for out of their accounts. When he goes there – something I very much hope for – he will see this for himself. Well, there is no secret about Volodin, his is not a name but a possesive adjective, describing whose. [Volodin means ‘Volodya’s’ – belonging to Volodya – and Volodya is the diminutive of Vladimir (i.e. Putin) – ed.] 

I remember our lawyers’ bootlicking and delight when they met him. These two photos from the Sakharov Centre – a now closed down cultural centre promoting human rights – say it all. Even then, I called it unimaginably shameful; the progressive public shushed me for offending Soviet-era activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva – ‘such a good woman’.

And what, pray, would they think about this now – those who helped this to happen?   

Translated by Oscar Seecharan