Doorstep threats, abuse hit anti-war Russians

Russian activists and journalists speaking out against their country’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine have had their homes vandalised by unknown pro-Kremlin figures.

Apartment doors have been daubed with threatening graffiti labelling the people inside a “traitor”, with messages featuring the letter “Z” – a pro-Kremlin symbol of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Other examples are even more extreme. In one case, a leading Russian journalist discovered a pig’s head wearing a wig on his doorstep with an anti-Semitic sticker stuck to his door.

Alexei Venediktov, the long-time editor of radio station Ekho of Moscow, before it stopped broadcasting due to increased Russian censorship, posted photos of the vandalism, pointing out the irony of an anti-Semitic attack happening in the “country that defeated fascism”.

Such vandalism was a sign of the increasingly intimidating atmosphere in Russia for those people who publicly expressed their opposition to the war in Ukraine.

When Darya Kheikinen looked through the peephole on the door of her St Petersburg apartment, she noticed it had been painted red on the outside.

She guessed straight away what had happened – there had been similar instances with other activists.

She opened the door to find the word “traitor” scrawled in large red letters across the outside, several pieces of paper with messages such as “a traitor to the motherland lives here” pinned to her home, and a pile of manure on the mat at her feet.

“It probably happened because of my public anti-war statements and opposition views,” Ms Kheikinen, a well-known political activist, told the BBC, adding that the same thing happened to three other St Petersburg activists at the same time.

It happened again the next morning – but only to her this time.

“The door was covered in green dye, and there was spray foam in the lock. There were signs reading ‘we will not forgive Nazism’ and ‘a Finnish Nazi lives here’,” she said, pointing out that her surname was Finnish.

The messages reflected the Kremlin’s false claims that Ukraine’s government was run by Nazis and its operation in Ukraine was necessary to “denazify” the country.

Ms Kheikinen doesn’t know who was responsible for the attack, but said as far as she knows the only people who have her address were her parents and the police. -BBC

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