Voices Against Putin’s War: Protestors’ Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts makes compelling reading. Published by the London-based radical publisher, Resistance Books, this collection features speeches by bold Russian anti-war political prisoners. The book is edited by English historian and socialist, Simon Pirani, who compiled the collection to show that opposition to Putin’s brutal war is widespread. The introduction notes that “courtroom speeches have again become a powerful weapon under Putin — and the Kremlin dictatorship is finding ways to get its revenge.”
Voices publishes in full the speeches made by twelve Russian citizens, made both inside and outside court. The collection also includes a chapter that features additional cases of people who used the courts to deliver anti-war speeches.
New laws to suppress opposition were enacted immediately after the invasion of Ukraine. These laws criminalise activities that supposedly “discredit the military,” and are used against people who name the war in Ukraine accurately or circulate information about army atrocities. It doesn’t take much to become a target of the Putin regime. The Kremlin calls the fighting in Ukraine “a special military operation” and, for Russian citizens, simply labelling it a “war” is extremely risky.
The dissidents are united by their opposition to Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people and by the harsh prison sentences each faced. But they are an otherwise eclectic bunch comprising pensioners, artists, anarchists, local councillors, poets, activists, human rights campaigners, historians, leftists and pacifists.
In an interview last year with independent Russian journalist Ivan Rechnoy, Pirani said: “what is striking about these people is their diversity. They come from different generations, have different life experiences, and hold different political views.”
Alexi Rozhkov, 27, worked as a sales assistant in an electronics shop and played in a rock band. In his courtroom testimony, he said, “I am on trial for, among other things, having called the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine a war. I don’t think it’s a secret for anyone that, in our country, expressing your own opinion, if it differs from the opinion of the ruling authorities, remains dangerous, fraught with the risk of prison and worse.” He received a sixteen year sentence, which he is appealing.
Sasha Skochilenko is an artist and musician who, in March 2022, replaced five labels in a St Petersburg supermarket with information about the war. One said “The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol where about 400 people were seeking shelter.” Another read “Stop the war! In the first three days, 4,300 Russian soldiers were killed. Why are they silent about this on television?” She was arrested and held in pre-trial detention until November 2023. The court sentenced her to seven years’ jail for “disseminating false information about the army.” In her final statement to the court she said, “My criminal case is so strange and funny that it was opened, appropriately, on the first day of April. I feel like when I come into the courtroom…people will rise up, dance and shout ‘April Fools! April Fools!’ ”
Aleksandr Skobov, 67, is an historian who has been politically active, dating back to his involvement in the socialist wing of the Soviet dissident movement. He still proudly identifies as a “red.” I found his speech extremely moving. He declared that “the Putinist dictatorship may murder me, but it cannot force me to stop fighting against it.” In the 1990s he spoke out against Russian imperialism, vehemently denouncing the war on Chechnya. Today he belongs to the Free Russia Forum and explained what distinguishes it is its platform. “We stand for the unconditional return to Ukraine of all its internationally recognised territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea.” He was given 16 years jail for “justifying terrorism” in a social media post which supported Ukraine’s 2022 bombing of the Crimea Bridge.
Darya Kozyreva, 19, is the youngest of those whose speeches feature in Voices. Kozyreva was convicted of “discrediting the armed forces” and sentenced to twenty months in a penal colony. This young woman had simply placed flowers at the statue of Taras Shevchenko — Ukraine’s national poet — and read some lines from his poetry. Kozyreva is an open opponent of Putin, stating that it is clear that he “can’t get his head around the fact that Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Then again, there is a lot he can’t seem to grasp, such as human rights or democratic principles.”
The chapter which follows the speeches touches on other examples of political prisoners using the platform of the court to denounce the war or “the state suffocation of free speech to which they had fallen victim.” Among them is Mark Kislitsyn, a transgender man from Moscow who was charged with treason for transferring 865 rubles — about $15 Australian dollars — to a fellow trans rights activist in Ukraine. He has been sentenced to twelve years in a women’s penal colony and denied access to hormone therapy.
Also targeted is decorated army veteran, Andrei Prikazchikov. His crime? He published an anti-war social media post and wrote a letter to Putin, calling on him to end the war in Ukraine. He was sentenced to three years’ compulsory labour. Elena Abramova, a translator and single mother, was sentenced to two years’ jail for “discrediting” the army after being arrested in 2023 for demonstrating for peace, the release of political prisoners and for carrying a placard calling for “Russia without Putin.”
The final chapter is titled “The twenty-first century gulag.” In it, Pirani observes that “war provokes resistance; war and resistance turbocharge state repression.” The book estimates that there are more than 3,000 political prisoners in Russia.
Voices Against Putin’s War shows that, while state repression aims to mute dissent, it cannot change how people think. This collection gives voice to those bold and brave Russian people standing against the brutality of the Putin régime. Reading them and talking about them is an act of solidarity with the many Russian people who oppose the war and for the Ukrainian people fighting for self-determination.
Voices Against Putin’s War: Protestors’ Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts is available from the bookshop at Solidarity Salon, 113 Spring Street Reservoir. Open Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, 11 am – 5 pm.
All proceeds from the publication go to Memorial: Support: Political Prisoners for its organising in support of Russian prisoners.
