On April 2, a Moscow man was arrested for holding up a package of sliced meat. The meat’s brand name was “Miratorg”; he had crossed out the final five letters so it read “Mir,” the Russian word for peace. This week he will have his day in court, and will probably — as others have — receive a hefty fine for “discrediting the Russian military.”
That same day, police opened a criminal case against an English teacher for distributing “false information” about the Russian military. Her eighth-grade class had recorded her talking about the war and reported it to police. She is currently under house arrest awaiting trial.
These are just two examples of many in which the Russian government is using law to dissuade and punish antiwar sentiment. Why do autocrats bother to use the law? The simple answer: It works.