Imagine that a murderer known across the country, a gangster, the owner of private military companies, a poisoner, and on top of that an old associate of Putin, assigns six 20-year-old idiots to you, who follow you around in shifts 24/7 and film you on their phones.
You go for a walk with your child — they follow you.
You’re coming home from work — they follow you.
To the clinic. To the store. They wait for you outside your apartment building and outside your office. At the airport, these idiots are there to meet you, and they’re the ones seeing you off too.
It’s useless to complain to the police about these idiots. More than that, the police will always help them follow you without interference.
Just imagine it, and ask yourself: would you want to live like that?
That is exactly how Lyubov Sobol lives.
I very much want everyone taking part in the broad “Sobol vs. Federmesser” debate that began after my letter to think about this. It is a very real-life example, and a useful one for any philosophical discussion about the degrees of cooperation with the authorities.
Prigozhin did not organize this alone. The pressure on Sobol is being applied in Sobyanin’s interests, because he very much dislikes Lyuba’s investigations. The same Sobyanin for whom Anna Konstantinovna Federmesser serves as a trusted representative.
This post is not about “let’s all feel sorry for Lyuba Sobol” — she knew what she was getting into, and she herself wants to investigate the Prigozhin-Sobyanin food supply contracts. If she were afraid, she would have dropped it.
This post is more about the fact that context matters. When we talk about “cooperating with the authorities,” we need to remember what kind of authorities these are. Power does not exist without specific names and specific methods.
When we talk about “doing good deeds,” we need to remember how many bad deeds can be done under cover of the reputation of a decent person.
I genuinely cannot imagine how anyone could support a government and an official who have organized pressure on a young woman in exactly this way, simply because she refuses to let the poisoning of children in kindergartens be covered up. And don’t tell me this isn’t Sobyanin. If Sobyanin did not like it, those idiots would be gone tomorrow. It’s not just that he approves — he listens to it at staff meetings when they report on the “countermeasures plan,” and nods with satisfaction.
And then he goes off to meet with civic activists and discuss “planned good deeds.”
P.S.
If you want to support Sobol in this situation, share this video and help Lyuba with fundraising and volunteer work.