Member-only story
How Not to Go to Jail in Putin’s Russia
Seize a city, blow up some helicopters, and receive a ‘get out of jail free’ card
A boy in Russia was playing Minecraft, an online computer game where participants build worlds, and he decided to build a virtual FSB building. He then proceeded to blow up that virtual building. This boy was arrested for terrorism.
A young woman changes out the prices in a store and puts into the numbers of dead Russian soldiers and other unsightly stats from the war in Ukraine. She is arrested and put in jail. Another young woman makes a poster with the words “net voble” — “vobla” is a type of fish that is dried in Russia and eaten with beer. It reads, “No to vobla” and she is arrested, tried, found innocent, tried again, and then found guilty.
A father is in prison because his 13-year-old daughter drew a picture that was supportive of Ukraine and critical of Russia’s war. The girl was put into a home for “troubled youth” and the father is imprisoned. Russians, claiming that they have such strong family ties, complained and forced the mother, who left the family when the girl was only three, to take her to live with her.
A man takes a private army, storms the headquarters that oversees operations for a war just across the border, and then sends his troops north to…
