“As long as Russia does not behave in a civilized way, this will continue forever,” he said, adding that he had approved the European ban. Russia “wanted to get to Kyiv to overthrow Zelensky and the government. “This is a sovereign state,” he said. “There is a sovereign government there.” Little did she know that her students were recording her outburst and that a copy would reach law enforcement, which opened a criminal investigation under a new national law banning false information about the military. Gen is one of at least four teachers recently handed over by students or parents for anti-war speech, in some of the most vivid examples of the government trying to identify and punish individuals who criticize the invasion. It is a campaign with dark Soviet repercussions, inspired last month by President Vladimir Putin, who praised the Russians for their ability to recognize “scum and traitors” and “spit them out like a fly”. “I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country,” Putin said in a televised speech on March 16, accusing the West of using a “fifth pillar” to destroy Russia. In recent weeks, a list of “traitors and enemies” has surfaced online, published by the Committee to Protect National Interests, a shadowy group seeking to expose public figures who support “anti-Russian” sanctions and political pressure. The Kaliningrad regional government has sent text messages to locals urging them to report “provocateurs and swindlers” undermining the “special operation in Ukraine”, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. And a number of opposition activists, journalists and politicians found the word “traitor” and cunning graffiti painted on their front doors. Putin’s war propaganda becomes “patriotic” lessons in Russian schools “After a very important period of freedom, fear has returned to Russian society and the informants have become more active against those who disagree with the authorities,” said Nikita Petrov, a longtime historian with the Moscow-based human rights group Memorial. The court was abolished in December after years of government pressure on the group. Opponents of war can easily break the law, given the new censorship rules. Recent additions to the penal code make it illegal to defame the armed forces or spread “false” information about the military – which in practice means anything that contradicts official government reports. The cases of children who reported on teachers are reminiscent of the young Soviet folk hero Pavlik Morozov, who, according to legend, betrayed his father to the authorities for anti-Soviet action. Generations of Soviet children were encouraged to be like Pavlik, to show faith in the state above all. Russian propaganda today emphasizes similar issues. “Being human, being a good citizen, being moral, means identifying with the state and being particularly identified with the language of the state,” said Ian Garner, a historian of Russian propaganda. “This is especially true when it comes to young people,” whom the Kremlin hopes to transform into obedient citizens, he said. In the weeks since the invasion began, Russian social media has been flooded with photos of students attending special patriotic classes or posing for photos as they form the letter Z – a symbol of support for the war. Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said in early March that more than 5 million children across Russia had attended a course called “Defenders of Peace”. It was part of a series of government productions evaluated by the Washington Post and promotes many of the Kremlin’s arguments and excuses for the attack on Ukraine. Until her resignation this month under pressure, Gen was teaching English to eighth-graders in Penza, 400 miles southeast of Moscow, according to Pavel Chikov, head of a human rights lawyers’ union that now represents the general. He did not respond to requests for comment. Gen’s answer to students’ questions about why they could not compete in the sporting event was “emotional,” Chikov said. “Someone recorded this conversation and then reported it to the police.” The recording was forwarded to the federal authorities, who on March 30 launched a criminal investigation under the new censorship law. A copy of the recording quickly spread on the internet. In it, Gen is heard fighting with her students. One girl seems to object to the teacher’s criticism of the invasion, saying “we do not know all the details”. “It simply came to our notice then. “You know absolutely nothing,” replies Gen. “I’m looking at 100, 200 different independent sources… We have a totalitarian regime. “Any disagreement is considered a crime of thought.” “We are a ruthless country! “We are North Korea.” “We are not accepted anywhere now.” The informants have appealed to various war critics, including a church deacon who shared his views with parishioners and colleagues, according to Russian media reports. A 17-year-old man in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk is being investigated for reporting on the war that he shared with a chat group on the Telegram social networking platform, according to his lawyer, Stanislav Seleznev. He said it was possible that law enforcement was monitoring the group or that one of the 400 participants mentioned his client. Investigators buried 21 of at least 67 bodies suspected of being in a mass grave in Bukha, Ukraine, on April 8. (Video: Joyce Koch / The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post) Several other teachers have also been targeted, including a university lecturer in the Amur region of Siberia, who was fined for spreading “false information” to her students about Russian military action in Ukraine, according to a local court. Witnesses to the insulting lecture gave testimony that helped establish the teacher’s guilt, the court added. On Sakhalin Island off the Russian Pacific coast, another English teacher was secretly recorded by a student last month. She was fired from her job and fined 30,000 rubles, about $ 375, by a court that said she had defamed Russian troops. The teacher, Marina Dubrova, told a Siberian news website linked to US-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty that she had described the war as “wrong” during the post-lesson discussions. The tape of the schoolgirl’s comments ended up with the police – probably through the parents, Dubrova said, though she was not sure. He did not respond to requests for comment from The Post. “I was greeted at school on Monday morning with the words: ‘Marina Gusmanovna, the police are here for you,’” Dubrova said in an interview, using her official name as her patronymic. “A protocol was drawn up against me and the trial took place on the same day. I explained my position that the president of our country is just a person, like everyone else, who can make mistakes. “And I think this decision is wrong,” Dubrova continued. “I was told that, as a teacher, I could not say such things to the students. “But I do not agree,” he said. “Teaching is a humanitarian profession, primarily to teach people to listen to different points of view, to form positions based on different points of view. Is that really bad? “
