This year, a similar law was passed by the Russian State Duma. Anti-gay-propaganda legislation came into force on in the Ryazan region in September 2011 in the Arkhangelsk and Kostroma regions and in 2012 in the Novosibirsk, Magadan, and Samara regions, and in the Bashkortostan Republic, Krasnodar Krai, and Saint Petersburg. First, such laws were adopted on the regional level. The government had time to think them over and to speculate on possible reactions to their passage. These laws had been under consideration for a long time. Of course the government knew what public reaction would be to laws banning gay propaganda around minors. In the Pussy Riot case, the government wanted to demonstrate that Russia is a religious and fundamentalist country, rather than a secular one that the sentence handed down in the farce trial was a reflection of the people’s will and that individual freedom pales before the power of the inferior mob.Īs much as we would like to think otherwise, the government is anything but stupid. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is anything but stupid. It very likely weighs its actions in advance and expects consequences. The government’s insistence on protecting the law enforcement mafia in the Magnitsky case drew the world’s attention to a new instrument of government influence that violates human rights.Īnd we continue to wonder: What does the government think it is doing? How can it fail to foresee the possible consequences of its actions? Unfortunately, we just don’t understand the government. Laws directed against homosexual propaganda have elicited fierce criticism of the Russian government from all corners of the world. Prison sentences for members of the punk band Pussy Riot mobilized protests by top figures in the European music industry. Many of the government’s initiatives damage Russia’s image and result in international scandals. Many of our troubles come from this lack of understanding. We judge the regime’s objectives, logic, and morals by our standards, when its own standards are completely different.

How can it be so stupid? Does it not realize that it is undermining its own position and the image of the country? What we fail to appreciate is that the government understands everything it does we just don’t understand its real motives. We fume about the Russian government doing this or that. It makes you feel better about yourself and reassures you by trivializing the threat: what foolishness did he or she think of this time? The same holds true when the adversary is the government. It is nice to think of your adversary as an idiot.

Republic at war malevolence