While anti-war protestors took to the streets in Russia, Ricky Schroder joined the People’s Convoy to protest mildly inconvenient mask policies.

“We’re not livestock,” he said, using his Instagram account to confront some imaginary force. “Unless you’re ready to, I guess, kill us all, you better change your minds because we’re not going to live as slaves.”

Of course, Schroder isn’t actually enslaved. He’s just foghorning Christian nationalist rhetoric, a variant of white supremacy that seeks to replace democracy with an authoritarian government guided by “God’s law,” which, unsurprisingly, favors white evangelical Christian men and requires the oppression of everyone else. It’s an anti-democratic ideology that flatters the most fragile of egos, because to be a Christian nationalist is to be a perpetual victim of your own imagined oppression.

This ideology has thrived in the United States for well over a century and continues to be the driving force behind actively destructive legislation, from book bans to the criminalization of bodily autonomy to the promotion of discrimination and violence against marginalized people. But to Schroder, the real injustice is a mundane health policy.

“You’re telling me I can’t come into this museum without a mask?” he bellows with righteous indignation in yet another Instagram video, for Ricky Schroder shall never bow to the tyranny of a minor inconvenience.

“I don’t make the rules,” says the security guard.

Thanks to the First Amendment, Schroder can safely join the People’s Convoy to act out his hero fantasies and maybe pick up a little merch to commemorate his adventure before he heads home.

But in Russia, anti-war protesters have been pushing back against their government with action that requires actual, not imaginary, courage. And journalists, who are experiencing extraordinary censorship with the sudden criminalization of war coverage, are fighting to ensure these stories are known while they still can.

On Sunday, March 6th, protests against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine were held in 65 cities throughout Russia. More than 4,300 people were detained.

One of them was 26-year-old Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh, who was held at the Brateevo Department of Internal Affairs in Moscow. When she refused to answer their questions, she was beaten, partially stripped, and humiliated by the police.

She not only resisted questioning and fought for her rights while she was being assaulted, she also recorded audio of the entire interrogation. When she was eventually released, she gave this recording to an independent journalist.

Over the past few days, Putin has imposed an information blackout, ostensibly to prevent the Russian people from accessing legitimate reporting on his invasion. Facebook and Twitter have been blocked, and independent news outlets have been shut down, including Ekho Moskvy — Echo of Moscow — an independent radio station that had been on air since 1990.

Novaya Gazetaisone of the few remaining independent news outlets. The editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Maria Ressa for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

On March 3rd, Muratov negotiated an agreement with state censors to keep Novaya Gazeta running. This meant restricting their coverage of the war.

But then, on March 4th, a law was passed forbidding the publication of any reporting that wasn’t state-sanctioned propaganda. In typical authoritarian-speak, news that departs from state propaganda is labeled “intentionally false” — fake news, if you will. Those who violate this law by publishing truthful accounts of the war now face 15 years in prison.

As a result, most of the international press has left the country, including the BBC and CNN. But Novaya Gazeta made it clear that they weren’t going anywhere. They published a statement acknowledging that this law meant they would not be able to publish investigations into the war, but it wouldn’t prevent them from publishing stories about the turmoil and anti-war protests within the country:

We will continue to collect information. But when and in what form it will be published — we do not know.

We are terribly ashamed to take this step while our friends, acquaintances and relatives are experiencing real hell in Ukraine. And on both sides.

But it would be even more shameful to refuse coverage of events at all. Military censorship does not cover the fact that the war is going on inside [our country]. How does what is happening affect the mental state of Russians and Ukrainians? What is the future of our economy and our personal finances? Will Russia protest against what is happening? What form will the repression take?

Over the weekend, March 5th and 6th, they did exactly that. They covered the anti-war protests and police brutality.

And on March 6th, they published the audio of Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh’s interrogation by police.

Here’s an excerpt of the transcript translated to English by Mark Krotov and Bela Shayevich:

(Sound of Aleksandra being struck.)

Male Officer: You’ll have a little bruise now. Come on, get up, time to talk, right? Uh-huh. Yeah.

(The sound of another strike.)

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: [uncensored swearing expressing extreme bewilderment at the sound of the force of the strike] [inaudible], to be honest.

Male Officer: So, are we going to keep it moving?

(Aleksandra exhales.)

Male Officer: Or is it going to be the 51st?

“The 51st” mentioned here is comparable to the 5th Amendment — it protects against self-incrimination.

At the beginning of the interrogation, the police demand to know her phone number and place of study. When she refuses to answer, asserting her 51st-article rights, the male officer begins to beat her.

Her breasts become exposed.

Male Officer: Look at your goddamn tits, like goddamn udders hanging out! Take a look at yourself, goddamn it. Fucking monkey!

Throughout the interrogation, she refuses to answer their questions, so they continue to beat and humiliate her.

At a certain point, she starts to vocalize when she’s been struck, presumably to ensure it’s clearly recorded.

Male Officer: Are you officially employed?

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: I refuse to answer.

Female Officer: Where did you find out about the protest?!

Unknown male voice: First time, fuck, of course . . .

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: Oh, god . . .

Female Officer: Where did you find out about the protest?

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: I don’t know . . .

Female Officer: What?

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: The 51st . . . Listen, you know what’s uncomfortable? I don’t have a bra on . . . Just don’t look at me, please.

Man’s Voice: Not like there’s anything there to look at, shit.

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: Oh, well thanks.

(The sound of a strike.)

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: OK, you hit me . . .

(The sound of another strike.)

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: You hit me on the head, on my face with a bottle of water.

Male Officer: And?

Aleksandra Kaluzhskikh: Oh, shit. (Aleksandra exhales).

Male Officer: I think she’s getting off on us beating her up.

Male Officer #2: Would you look at her . . .

Male Officer: Yeah, this dipshit. Fucking loser. What, you think we’re gonna get in trouble for this? Putin told us to kill all of these dumbfucks. That’s it! Putin’s on our side! You’re the enemies of the Russian people, OK, fucking enemies of the state. I’m gonna fucking kill you, OK, and that’s it. Finished. And then they’ll give us a prize for it, too.

You can read the full translated transcript here. The original transcript, in Russian, at Novaya Gazeta is here (you can set it to translate if you open it in Chrome).

Doxa Journal has another translation.

Here’s the audio:

While I’ve been writing this, Novaya Gazeta published another account and another audio recording, this one from 22-year-old protestor Marina Morozova who was interrogated in the same police department.

Based on the transcript, she invoked her 51st-article rights and smiled during the interrogation, which seemed to enrage the male officer. He beat her repeatedly and threatened her with a gun.

An excerpt (via Google translation):

Marina Morozova: (Crying.) Why are you beating me?

Male Officer: Because I wanted to.

Marina Morozova: You are not a man, do you understand?

When the police officer tries to take her picture, she resists.

Male Officer: I am the lord here, the judge, do you understand?

Marina Morozova: No, you are not the ruler here.

Male Officer: I am the ruler. I’m telling you, stand, [unclear], against the wall.

Marina Morozova: No.

Male Officer: I’ll pick you up now, you understand? I will use force on you, *** [damn]. Do you want it?

Marina Morozova: No, I don’t want that.

Male Officer: Then get up.

Marina Morozova: No, well, there is a law.

Male Officer: There are no laws here. The law is here — only my law is here.

Male Officer #2: They don’t apply to you.

And yet another article was published in Novaya Gazeta just a few hours ago to demonstrate that what Morozova and Kaluzhskikh experienced were not isolated events.

They spoke to multiple young women who were detained and interrogated by the same officers. When these women invoked their 51st-article rights, they were assaulted.

Here are a few of their accounts (I’m relying on Google translation here).

A 21-year-old woman identified as Ksenia:

He shouted, said that people like us “should [be] beaten”, that he would like to be treated like in Belarus, that people like us are unworthy to live in this country, that we are no one not needed in this country that we are a disgrace to the country. That if he could, he would shoot at us, he kept lamenting and saying, it’s a pity that you can’t shoot.

A woman identified as Christina:

When I referred to Article 51 and refused to disclose my personal data, they immediately poured a liter of water on me, right in my face. They called me a whore, a prostitute, threatened to put me in the homeless, who… well, you understand. They waved a couple of times. There were threats that, they say, you will not leave here. We were only spoken to through threats.

A woman identified as Yevgenia:

He insulted me, cursed, and started hitting me on the shoulder, three times, after that — with a knee, threatened, said that *** [would hit my face] if I didn’t give the phone.

This is what anti-war protesters in Russia are experiencing.

It takes courage to protest. It takes courage to assert your rights as they’re being eroded by your government and ignored by the police. It takes courage to make these experiences public and it takes courage for journalists to publish these accounts, knowing that Putin is currently in an authoritarian tailspin that will undoubtedly lead to even greater repercussions for the press.

In Novaya Gazeta’s March 4th statement, Nikita Kondratiev wrote:

The Washington Post’s first post-war publisher, Philip Graham, said news is the first rough draft of history.

We, the first military generation in Putin’s Russia (many of us are not even twenty-five), say: we cannot leave the Russian reality without at least these sketches of history. Otherwise, everything that happened in Russia in the 2020s will remain in the memory of our children as a fiction invented by someone else.

Novaya Gazeta is still up for now. It might not be up for much longer.

But my hope is that these independent news organizations continue to exist so that these moments of courage and resistance will to be remembered.

Historical memory is important. Without it, tragedies are forgotten and justice is left unserved.