In my previous article, I promised to return to the subject of political terror widely practiced by the Moscow government. (See https://arcaluinoe.info/en/blog/2026-06-06-q9ncgmpy/). And in another article written a few days before the one cited, I showed some of the legal norms that allow the suppression of any criticism of the policies of those who totalitarianly control power in Moscow (https://arcaluinoe.info/en/blog/2026-05-29-lbg4x5wm/).
Please consider today's article as a prelude to another article also dedicated to the suppression of freedom of speech and in fact of any political freedoms in today's Russia. I hope that my texts will serve as a slap in the face to those analysts/commentators/politicians, who flaunt their blind and immoral admiration for a regime that has been usurping power for over 25 years to the detriment of the national interests of this country.
Today, June 8, 2026, those who are gripped by the spell of idolatry towards the Kremlin regime have another opportunity for satisfaction bordering on bliss. The insufferable Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for whom I have no sympathy, the oligarch who fled abroad after being released from prison, was sentenced today in absentia to 10 years in prison. The prosecution had requested 14 years in prison.
As a reminder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was imprisoned for 10 years and two months. He was arrested on October 25, 2003 and released on December 20, 2013, after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pardon decree.
“Moscow's Meshchansky District Court found Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of the Yukos oil company (listed by the Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent), guilty in absentia of two counts of disseminating fake news about the Russian army (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). As an RBC correspondent reports from the courtroom, Judge Oksana Goryunova sentenced him to 10 years in prison with a five-year ban on website administration.
The criminal case against Khodorkovsky for military 'fakes' was opened in September 2023. The charges stemmed from a post on the social media site X (formerly Twitter) on September 9, 2022, and a video posted on his YouTube channel on July 9, 2024.
The first case involved a photograph of a document purporting to be a letter from Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, discussing payments to the families of fallen participants in the military operation in Ukraine. According to the indictment, the letter was forged, and the businessman's statements were inconsistent with the official position of the Ministry of Defense (Please note the wording — Iu. R!). The second instance of disseminating fake news concerned damage to a hospital in Kyiv".
I repeat, I have no sympathy for Khodorkovsky. As, indeed, for any liberal in Russia. I know that he is an oligarch who actively participated in the plundering of Russia's national wealth. I admit that he served time in prison, having been punished for some particularly serious economic crimes. But let's agree, if 10 years in prison for his illegal actions related to the Yukos company can be understood by anyone, another term of deprivation of liberty for the same ten-year term only for “crime of opinion” and for the inconsistency of the defendant's opinion with the official position of the Ministry of Defense is difficult to digest for a healthy mind.
All of Russia's draconian legislation today is predicated on the fight against extremism, terrorism, and, of course, the “external enemy.” In addition, the interminable and increasingly bizarre (non-war) with Ukraine offers a perfect pretext for the gerontocratic regime in Moscow to suppress anything that does not reproduce the official Kremlin discourse one hundred percent.
That is, the practices of communist repressions from the Soviet period have been fully resumed by those who proudly call themselves “siloviki” and “CK”-ists. The logic of a tyrannical political system is always the same: anyone who deviates from the “party/official line” is an “enemy of the people” and must be annihilated without mercy or hesitation.
In today's Russian society, the absurd has become the norm, and normality has become a criminal offense. In today's Russia, if you disapprove of the fratricidal war of the past four and a half years and — horribile dictu! — call for peace, you are equated with the most dangerous criminal and sent to prison. And what a perfidious formula the regime's servants have invented to put the repressive apparatus into operation: discrediting the Armed Forces.
So, welcome to the Orwellian dystopian reality “1984”!
Long live the multipolar anti-globalists led by Vladimir Putin!
I will be back soon.
