Back to “Hell”

In the previous post I mentioned how FSB followed me even in France. When I had to come back to Russia I experienced the deepest depression in my life. Living in dictatorship was becoming more and more unbearable. After the freedom of speech I had experienced in the West, I couldn’t withstand Russian authoritarianism anymore and decided to leave Russia for good. However, facing disillusionment with the West was ahead of me.

Pursuit of Freedom

It took me three years and a lot of effort. I learned French and Italian, hoping to find a job in these countries one day. It proved to be fruitless with my Russian passport. The only option I had was Slovakia, which seemed better than nothing. I found a job in a car factory there and was about to get my visa when Putin invaded Ukraine. I was denied my Slovakian visa without any explanation. Even denouncing Putin publicly in the Slovakian embassy in Moscow wasn’t enough. For the embassy staff I was just another Russian, hence complicit in the war. That was the moment I started questioning Western democracies with their “values”.

Questioning Narratives

I was still pretty much pro-Western and didn’t want to buy Putin’s lies about Donbass and Lugansk being bombarded by the Ukrainian army. Russian propaganda went wild. I remember walking in the centre of Moscow, seeing countless pictures of children victimized in the Donbass and Lugansk regions. To be honest, it was hard not to believe stories about children being killed when I saw pictures of their graves. Russian media wouldn’t stop justifying the invasion by calling it “СВО” (SMO or Special Military Operation) claiming it was to liberate the Russian minorities and “denazify” Ukraine.

I remember Putin saying that between 2014 and 2022 eight thousand civilians died as a result of the Ukrainian army shelling in the Donbass and Lugansk regions. Every single time someone tried to oppose the war, the “8,000 civilians slaughtered” story was brought up. If you dared to express disagreement with the invasion, someone would challenge you saying: “Where were you all these 8 years of nonstop Donbass and Lugansk shelling by Ukro-Nazis!?”.

Facing Disillusionment with Western Values

I was so fed up with that story that I had to look for the “truth” from Western sources. In vain I was desperately trying to find any legit evidence of Putin’s lying but there was none. I remember searching for unbiased information about the Donbass and Lugansk shelling from numerous sources in English, French and Italian. Every time I found any mention of the war, it was just saying that Putin was lying all the time. According to the West, Ukraine didn’t bomb anybody. If anyone was responsible for the alleged 8,000 civilian deaths it was Putin’s mercenaries.

I’ve been listening for more than two years to an Italian radio program “La Zanzara” to improve my Italian and to see how Westerners view the war in Ukraine. Every now and then there’s someone calling out the hosts by mentioning 8,000 civilian deaths in Donbass and Lugansk regions. They are not given any time to speak. Those who support Putin are ridiculed and silenced immediately. How is it freedom of speech? I really want to see Putin proved to be wrong with facts, but all I see is silencing those who disagree with the Western narrative. Saying that there’s no freedom of speech in Russia and then silencing those who have different views in the West is laughable. It’s pure hypocrisy and double standards. Facing disillusionment with Western values is what I’ve gone through despite all my desperate attempts to justify the West.

Confronting Censorship

Just as I started writing this post, I stumbled upon the following news. “The European Union has decided to suspend the distribution of several Russian media outlets, including Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. These measures are intended to prevent further interference in European political processes, especially with upcoming elections in mind. It reflects ongoing concerns about the impact of Russian state media on European democracy and public opinion.”

Even though I never followed those Russian state media outlets, and I doubt they were popular in the West, I still can’t help but feel that this is yet another nail in the coffin of freedom of speech. Now, you might argue that Russia did it first when it banned certain Western media and social networks, but think about this: everyone knows that Russia isn’t a democracy, and freedom of speech is not something that comes to mind when thinking about Russia.

The EU and the US, on the other hand, pride themselves on Western values and insist that freedom of speech is paramount to democracy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see how banning media outlets aligns with that. As someone who lived his whole life in Russia and was always pro-democracy, I have problems with restricting free speech.

Comparison of Free Speech

In the previous post “From East to West: Seeking True Democracy”, I mentioned how I enjoyed free speech in France, but it wasn’t as “free” as I had expected. Yes, I could insult Putin, Macron and others as much as I wanted but there were even more taboos in the West than in my country. In Russia, as long as you don’t criticize Putin and his government, you are pretty much good to go. Everything else is fine. In the West it seems exactly the opposite. Here are just a few topics to avoid by all means if you want to express your opinion openly: racism, LGBTQ and feminism.

Whenever I tried to talk about those topics, people would become stiff and reluctant to speak their minds. They would only say some banalities in line with the accepted norms. It felt like I was back in Russia. Everyone was self-censoring themselves nonstop. I was the only one speaking my mind openly exercising my free speech. I felt that most of the times they shared my opinion but wouldn’t voice it. There just wasn’t freedom of speech in the West as I had imagined it. Facing disillusionment with Western values was painful, but sobering.

From East to West: A Critical Stance on Western Values

How am I and other Russians who are against the regime supposed to believe in Western values if those values aren’t respected in the West itself? By silencing those who have different opinions the West might end up becoming like modern Russia. I’m getting increasingly indifferent to politics. So many protesters have already been silenced, imprisoned and killed, and for what purpose exactly? For the bright future based on European values? Those values don’t seem to be that appealing anymore. If the West continues down this path, how soon before it becomes what it once stood against?