Russian dissident Liliya Vezhevatova: ‘Girls are the face of protest in Russia’

Meridiano 13: What’s Feminist Resistance In opposition to Struggle?

Liliya Vezhevatova: Feminist Resistance In opposition to Struggle  is a horizontal motion that arose after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It brings collectively Russian feminists – each unbiased organisations and activists. Our Manifesto was revealed on 25 February 2022.

How is the motion organised? 

We’re a horizontal motion, with out hierarchy. To make necessary choices there are video calls among the many coordinators and an nameless bot on Telegram. Feminist Resistance In opposition to Struggle is a community, with autonomous teams in several cities. To open a gaggle, one solely must share the concepts of our Manifesto. In accordance with our information, greater than 45 feminist teams are lively all through Russia, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, and our activists work in 28 international locations.

Are the motion and/or activists topic to repression by the authorities? 

Sure, like all different protest actions in at the moment’s Russia, our motion is topic to persecution and repression. In December 2022, the motion was given the standing of “international agent”. That is how the federal government tries to stop it from working.

Our activists and coordinators are recurrently stopped, fined and arrested. Homes are searched and computer systems seized. The activists most in danger, we attempt to get them out of Russia.

After the mobilisation was introduced, protests by the moms and wives of the mobilised occurred throughout Russia, and the Council of Wives and Moms was created. What function did girls play within the resistance motion on this first yr of the battle?

1000’s of activists have been protesting in opposition to the struggle and dictatorship. Girls unfold underground pamphlets, organised pickets and peaceable demonstrations. Even earlier than the invasion of Ukraine, feminine activists recurrently took to the squares of their cities to show in opposition to corruption, home violence, the blocking of unbiased media, and to defend political prisoners. This regardless of being subjected to police repression, public outrage and web witch-hunts.

After 24 February 2022, girls haven’t solely turn into the face of anti-war protests, but in addition the principle driving power tackling different war-related points. Girls are serving to Ukrainians whom Russia has made homeless; they’re serving to males who don’t wish to kill and die; they’re serving to legal professionals whom the authorities name “enemies”. After 24 February, to many Russian girls, all this turned extra necessary than their careers and personal lives.

In his speech to the Federal Meeting on 23 February 2023, Putin once more emphasised that the household is the union between a person and a girl and that there isn’t any place for “Western Satanism” in a Russian society primarily based on conventional Orthodox values. 

On this struggle, it isn’t simply mobilisation that threatens the rights, private security and financial wellbeing of Russian girls – additionally it is the amplification of traditionalist rhetoric that goes with the struggle. The massive sums of cash which can be spent on struggle operations could possibly be invested within the welfare of girls and kids. The federal government apparently cares much less concerning the household than about rising the military.

Males are taken away even after they have minor dependent kids. In lots of areas, households have needed to equip the mobilised males themselves, shopping for all the things at their very own expense, together with bulletproof vests. Who will take care of the households who’ve misplaced their solely supply of livelihood? All this struggling rests on the shoulders of the ladies. Most of the surviving males are sick and unable to work, and it’s all the time the ladies who, attributable to lack of state assist, need to deal with them. 

As well as, financial issues and the social disaster will inevitably result in an increase in home violence. Males returning to civilian life carry with them war-related psychological traumas, which frequently lead to aggression.

On 5 December 2022, Putin signed a brand new legislation banning LGBT+ propaganda. Has the struggle accelerated gender inequality?

The federal government equates its struggle in opposition to the LGBT neighborhood with defending Russia’s sovereignty. Even earlier than the enactment of the legislation, there have been debates in parliament on banning “homosexual propaganda” through which the “sodomitic ethics of the brand new man” was mentioned. This “sin” is described by parliamentarians as not a personal affair, however a matter for the state. “On the ethics of the nation at struggle relies upon our future widespread victory,” stated a consultant of the Russian Orthodox Church on that event. Those that don’t conceal their “non-traditional sexual orientation” are persecuted in the identical means as activists and opposition politicians. For the reason that starting of the struggle in Ukraine, many have left Russia, however most do not need this risk.

What does it imply at the moment to be a consultant of the LGBT+ neighborhood in Russia through the struggle? 

The legislation doesn’t include a exact definition of “homosexual propaganda”. This will increase the probability of persecution for a big phase of the inhabitants. Militarist rhetoric was already in play through the dialogue of the invoice: LGBT propaganda was outlined because the core of the struggle – hybrid and non secular – that the “collective West” has declared on Russia. Failures on the bottom in Ukraine are linked to ethical degradation; defeating “sodomy” additionally means victory in struggle.

What sort of protest actions have you ever organised?

In additional than a yr of existence, Feminist Resistance activists have organised dozens of actions: from girls’s marches originally of the struggle, to partisan actions when it turned unattainable to show in opposition to the struggle. One of many predominant duties is to beat the data blockade through which the Russians have discovered themselves due to struggle censorship. Throughout Russia the teams act in keeping with their very own safety protocols and anonymously: they offer out leaflets on how you can keep away from mobilisation, they distribute “Ženskaja Pravda” (“Girls’s Fact”), the motion’s newspaper, they usually organise acts of resistance.

As well as, in Russia, now we have arrange teams to boost an anti-war consciousness. The purpose is to unite folks with anti-war concepts who can not freely specific their place. A psychological assist scheme has been arrange and has obtained greater than 1,000 requests for assist.

Individually, work is carried out on the web. We create viral content material: for instance, greeting playing cards with anti-war phrases that we unfold on social networks. On social networks and through Telegram bots we unfold necessary directions on how you can keep away from mobilisation, and supply lawyer contacts.

The Feminist Resistance In opposition to Struggle has joined Alexei Navalny’s on-line platform.

The workplaces of Navalny are efficiently utilizing a safer platform on TOR to attach coordinators with volunteers in Russia. They invited different opposition actions to open their very own teams on their platform and we had been first to just accept. Now our activists in Russia also can keep in contact and coordinate their work through the platform.  

How do you assess the motion on this first yr of existence and what prospects do you see for the longer term?

In that yr, our motion established itself as a brand new political power in Russia. It has performed an infinite quantity of labor. Resistance has turn into the principle focus of life for many people. So long as Russian missiles fly over Ukrainian cities, so long as girls, males, kids and the aged die in Ukraine by the hands of Russian troopers, we can not cease.

👉 Unique article on Meridiano 13