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For those Russians who are strongly influenced by the Kremlin narratives, independent reporting on the ongoing war in Ukraine may not be ...

Cognitive dissonance

 Natalya Pinchuk of Belarus, Yan Rachinsky of Russia, and Oleksandra Matviichuk of Ukraine [have received](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiO3fikAUng) their Nobel Peace Prize medals in Oslo. Natalya Pinchuk of Belarus, Yan Rachinsky of Russia, and Oleksandra Matviichuk of Ukraine (left to right). Photo screenshoted from the official broadcast The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, a Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties. Bialiatski, who is currently imprisoned in his home country, was represented by his wife Natalya Pinchuk. Photo screenshoted from the official broadcast Pinchuk delivered a speech in Belarusian. “Ales is not the only one in prison. There thousands of Belarusians there, oppressed for their public stance. Hundreds of thousands were forced to leave the country only because they wanted to live in a democratic nation. There is a years-long war in Belarus with the state fighting against its own people, the Belarusian language, and the democratic values,” she said before she read a message from her husband.“It so happens that the people who value freedom the most are often deprived of it. This prize belongs to all my colleagues involved in human rights movement, and dozens of thousands of Belarusians who have been tortured, arrested or imprisoned. This prize is an award for millions of Belarusian citizens who had rallied up to defend civil rights. It also serves as evidence of the dramatic situation with human rights in our country. Today, the permanent struggle between the good and the evil has expanded quintessentially in our entire region. It’s not enough to be educated and democracy-minded, it’s not enough to be humane and merciful. It is also necessary to be able to defend one’s properties and homeland. I know certainly what kind of a Ukraine would satisfy Russia and Putin: a dependent dictatorship, just like today’s Belarus, where the voice of the oppressed folk is not heard,” reads Bialiatski’s statement. His wife finished her speech, saying: “Freedom to the Belarusian people! Freedom to Vyasna! Long live Belarus!” Photo screenshoted from the official broadcast Oleksandra Matviichuk of Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties said the following: "Our entire country was waiting for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize announcement. We consider this a recognition of the efforts of Ukraine’s people who have stood up bravely against attempts to destroy the peaceful development of Europe and also as a recognition of how important the work of human rights defenders is to anticipate the military menace worldwide. We are proud that today the Ukrainian language will be spoken at this ceremony for the first time in history. We are receiving a Nobel Peace Prize while there’s a war on. This war has been on for eight years, nine months, and twenty-one days.” Photo screenshoted from the official broadcast Memorial’s Yan Rachinsky also delivered a speech: “After the Soviet Union broke up, the new countries that formed on its former territory had new historical narratives emerged, which contradicted the Soviet historical mythology. Soon after Vladimir Putin took power, the new Russian leadership and its ideological lackeys started boisterous ‘wars of memory’ against its neighbours: Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, using the same old Soviet stereotypes and labels. Obviously, this was not done for the sake of ‘historical truth’, but for their own political ambitions. It ended up with the fight against ‘nationalism’ and ‘banderitism’ becoming an ideological excuse to start an insane, criminal, and rapacious war against Ukraine. Russia’s historical memory fell victim to this madness in the early days of war. Swapping the notions of ‘fascism’ and ‘anti-fascism’ was enough to distort the minds of Russia’s people, and now Russia’s mass media call an armoured invasion of a neighbouring country ‘antifascism’. Ukraine’s territories are being annexed, its people are being terrorised, war crimes are being committed. Russia spreads hatred towards Ukraine, its language and culture among Russian people, claiming that the Ukrainian people do not exist, and labelling the resistance as 'fascism”.Rachinsky also added that Memorial’s members had doubts whether the organisation truly deserved the prize. “Although Memorial failed to stave off the 24 February tragedy, we’re not giving up and continuing our work,” he added. It was[ revealed on 7 October](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/10/07/nobel-peace-prize-awarded-to-human-rights-advocate-ales-bialiatski-from-belarus-russian-memorial-and-ukrainian-center-for-civil-liberties-news) that Bialiatski, Memorial, and Centre for Civil Liberties would receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It was noted in the official statement of the Nobel Committee that the laureates “had for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”"They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy,” the committee’s statement read.

Belarusian activist Bialiatski, Russia’s human rights group Memorial and Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties receive Nobel Peace Prize medals in Oslo

[The transcript](http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70046) of the video conference between Vladimir Putin and the members of the “Human Rights Council” of Russia (recently, new members of the council have included one of the most odious military propagandists Alexander Kots, Elena Shishkina from the movement ‘Free Donbas’, and other similar characters) inevitably makes one put these words in quotations marks. Vladimir Putin during the meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights of Russia, 7 December 2022\. Photo: EPA-EFE / MIKHAIL METZEL / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL MANDATORY CREDIT None of the members of this performative council even mentioned Russian political prisoners.None of them said a word about the insane [22-year-long sentence](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/11/28/memorial-declares-journalist-ivan-safronov-who-was-sentenced-to-22-years-political-prisoner-en-news) given to Ivan Safronov, whose guilt was in no way proven, while the data he allegedly “disclosed” is publicly available. Or the [similar term](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/10/06/jailed-russian-politician-vladimir-kara-murza-charged-with-treason-news) that Vladimir Kara-Murza is facing over charges of “high treason”. About the thirteen years behind bars that Yury Dmitriev was sentenced to. About the [seven-year-long prison sentence](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/09/19/moscow-legislator-alexey-gorinovs-7-years-long-sentence-over-army-discrediting-charges-reduced-by-one-month-news) given to Alexey Gorinov for speaking out against the war during a legislature meeting. About many, many others. No one recalled thousands of criminal and administrative cases on “fake news” and “discreditation” of the Russian army, initiated against those whose opinion does not align with the statements posted by the Ministry of Defence. It is prohibited to doubt their authenticity. Instead, a member of the council and pro-government propagandist Kirill Vyshinsky called for introducing criminal liability for “Russophobia”. No one asked the president why law enforcement agents had stayed quiet after the publication of the infamous sledgehammer video.No one mentioned neither the protests organised by wives of mobilised Russian men nor the complaints of the draftees themselves, the ones who have health problems and who were refused upon asking to have their medical problems documented. There are persistent rumours that all these questions were banned by the head of the Human Rights Council Valery Fadeev, so as not to upset the president. „ In previous years, according to what ex-members of the council have said, the president was sent the questions in advance so he could prepare. But never before has a list of “prohibited questions” been compiled.However, the previous head of the council was Mikhail Fedotov, not Valery Fadeev. Fadeev, the one who saw no violations being committed by policemen during the mass detentions at protests all over Russia in 2021\. He did, however, [eagerly talk](http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70046) about “crimes committed by the Kiev \[Kyiv\] regime” during the aforementioned meeting.He also insisted that “international human rights institutions are politicised and biased and that actually they are not performing their functions”, that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being used by the West “to impose its values”, and that “new Western values that are in vogue have been brought to the point of absurdity; they are simply destructive.”Still, he was just saying what Putin wanted to hear. Putin thanked Fadeev and most of the council members because “since the first day, they have held an abundantly clear civic position: explaining the true reasons and need for the SMO \[‘special military operation’\]” and continuing to expose “the crimes of the Nazi regime that has asserted itself in a neighbouring country”. „ Immediately after these statements, the president started badmouthing the Western human rights organisations — using words that would not be surprising to read in the communist mouthpiece Pravda in the middle of the 1970s. These organisations, Putin said, “were created not as a tool to protect human rights, but as an instrument of influencing the domestic policy of Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union”.It turns out that, to appear neutral, “they spoke about human rights in their own countries from time to time, but it was an exception”.Recently, according to Putin, the UN Human Rights Council, the Council of Europe, and other “so-called human rights organisations” began “to shamelessly demonstrate their cynical bias”. They demonstrated that they were “unable to perform their chartered tasks, and due to their obvious bias, Russia has had to cancel its membership in a number of them”. Стань со-участником «Новой газеты» Стань соучастником «Новой газеты», подпишись на рассылку и получай письма от редакции [ Подписаться ](https: //novayagazeta.ru/donate) But there is no need to worry, the president assured his interlocutors, seeing as “our council, as an institution dealing with a broad range of public organisations in Russia and abroad, could become an efficient international platform for discussing human rights issues and the protection of these rights in the modern world”.And finally, he spelled out his thesis that all the previous statements were leading to: „ “We are seeing that human rights doctrines are being used to destroy the sovereignty of states and justify Western political, financial, economic, and ideological dominance.” Not one member of the “council” dared to speak out to oppose this statement — basically a copy of Soviet-time sentiment on “the so-called human rights” being an invention of bourgeois. No one reminded Putin about the Russian Constitution, which states that human rights are directly effective and define the meaning, contains, and use of laws.No one asked him: what is even the point of the Human Rights Council if human rights are an unfriendly invention being used by the enemy to harm Russia? The reason for these people’s behaviour is not very important, though, when they treat the president as if he were their master and they — his serfs. What is important is that the final veil fell from the Russian government in front of our eyes. The authorities no longer consider necessary, even for propriety’s sake, to utter any general words about human rights and proclaim the necessity of respecting them. Thirty-odd years ago, it was admitting the importance of respecting human rights that was one of the biggest differences between \[modern Russia\] and the Soviet era. Putting them in writing in the Constitution and laws. And simultaneously, embodying the rule of law principle, the law being above the government’s wishes, instead of the Soviet principle of “chief above law”. Vowing to adhere to these principles, ratifying international conventions, becoming a member of international organisations, including the priority of international law in the Constitution — all of these processes continued in the 1990s and even the 2000s, but they began to drastically change in the 2010s.Since then, the accusations from international organisations about human rights being violated in Russia have been replied to with more and more annoyed demands not to “interfere in our domestic affairs”. We will note: despite the propaganda lies, human rights violations are not a domestic affair of any one country — but statements on human rights being violated in the USSR traditionally also enraged the Soviet authorities.Simultaneously, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church also started to attack the definition of human rights. The head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, called human rights “nonsense” and lamented that “in the New Age, a person and their rights have become a universal criterion for truth, which led to the revolutionary banishment of God from society’s life.”However, the catalyst for change was, undoubtedly, the Magnitsky Act, adopted in the US and named after Sergey Magnitsky who died in prison. This law introduced personal sanctions against individuals responsible for violating human rights and the rule of law in Russia.The Kremlin was unable to accept that, thus, the Dima Yakovlev Law was quickly adopted, initiated by the leaders of all four State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s Parliament — translator’s note) factions. The law banned adoption of Russian orphans by citizens of the US and other countries “implicated in violation of Russian citizens’ rights” (the violation in question was primarily introducing sanctions against these citizens).The next rupture happened in 2020, after the amendments to the Russian Constitution that allowed not to execute the decisions of international courts and international agreements ratified by Russia.In practice, this was a violation of one of the untouchable foundations of the constitutional order: Article 15.4 of the Russian Constitution, stipulating that international agreements signed by the Russian Federation make up an integral part of its legal system.However, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation saw no violations in the amendments. And if before only political holy fools like the National Liberation Movement talked about annulling the priority of international law over domestic law, now it is part of state policy.And here is the logical stopping point. Surprising to no one. „ Human rights, freedom, and democracy are things that Putin has sincerely and deeply hated since his days working for the KGB. This hatred is shared by his circle of law enforcers, the ones in uniform and without one. While it was still important to have a normal relationship with the West, they tried to mask this hatred. By saying that they adhered to these values — although in practice, they were constantly cast aside.Now that the West has been officially announced as the enemy, there is no need to continue pretending: it’s time to take off the mask.

Putin’s Rights Council . This is how the meeting between Putin and the new pro-government ‘human rights defenders’ of the ‘special military operation’ era went

 The Russian Health Ministry denies the report that Russia ranks in top-5 countries globally in HIV infection rates, the ministry [made](https://minzdrav.gov.ru/news/2022/12/08/19630-zayavlenie-minzdrava-rossii-otnositelno-serii-publikatsiy-o-situatsii-s-vich) a statement on its website.“Media have published alleged data of the UNAIDS that puts Russia in top-5 countries around the world in highest HIV spread rates which is not true and represents just another propagandist provocation aimed against our country,” the statement reads.The ministry claims that the data published by the UNAIDS “interprets data from various sources that collect information about the HIV/AIDS epidemic infections across various years of observation on a selective and biassed basis”.The ministry retaliates by claiming that the HIV infection rates in Russia are actually decreasing from year to year. Moreover, Russia is one of the few countries that have its own programme to combat the spread of HIV, the statement notes.“Other countries normally resort to grants provided by international organisations like the UNAIDS and, correspondingly, only implement those measures that are financially covered by them,” the health agency adds.The latest report drafted by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was published on 7 December. The document points out that Russia was ranked in top-5 countries around the world in the highest HIV infection rates in 2021\. „ According to the organisations, 1.5 million cases of HIV transmission were registered in 2021 globally, Russia accounted for 3.9% of them. South Africa comes first (14%), followed by Mozambique (6.5%), Nigeria (4.9%), and India (4.2%).The Russian health watchdog [reported](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/11/02/rospotrebnadzor-vich-infitsirovany-do-15-mln-rossiian-news) in early November that 1% of the Russian population (up to 1.5 million people) live with HIV. Forecasts suggest that in 2020-2030 there will be 660,000 new HIV cases recorded in Russia, taking into account the national HIV infection prevention policy.Meanwhile, HIV specialist at the Russian ministry Alexey Mazus [said](https://tass.ru/obschestvo/16219293) that the HIV infection rates are dropping in Russia.According to him, there were 851,754 people living with HIV in Russia in 2021, while 58,788 of them were diagnosed in 2021.

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