Discussion on Living in Russia During Conflict

A remark once struck me, though said, seemingly, with a chuckle

and irony: "Living in Russia is illegal in itself."

What did you mean by that?

Well, I meant that living in

the Russian Federation means

exposing yourself to, well,

very substantial risks tomorrow, that you'll be paying reparations, yes,

you'll be paying higher taxes, your property could be, uh,

destroyed, uh,

by Ukraine's Armed Forces, and so on and so forth.

And afterward, you'll never prove in court that they

attacked you and bombed you, bombed you.

I mean, living in the Russian Federation now

is a dangerous undertaking in itself,

dangerous from the standpoint of international law, highly dubious.

No, dangerous and illegal are simply different things.

Well, illegal. Well, I mean, for citizens, for citizens,

residing in the Russian Federation, opening, uh, bank accounts,

worldwide, except for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation,

Armenia,

is illegal. There you go. I mean, it's made so difficult

that you could call it illegal.

Yeah, like, a citizen of the Russian Federation—

theoretically, that's

every such individual, an accomplice to a crime, and so on

and so forth.

How does that relate to the fact that living in the Russian Federation

is illegal, sorry?

Living on the territory, living on the territory

of an aggressor state violates

international law. The status of a citizen

of an aggressor country makes you an international criminal, an accomplice

in an international— an accomplice to a crime.

This is so fucking stupid, it's unclear enough as it is.

Absolutely unclear.

Why is that unclear? Why do you distinguish between Russia

and fascist Germany?

Why don't you understand that? Because our friends are still there.

What part of that is unclear? You pay taxes, you take part in

economic activity, you take part in all kinds of

economic

activity within the country, which is building a mobilization economy,

and serving the war. You are committing a crime.

Being a citizen of an aggressor country is bad.

Being a citizen of an aggressor country is a crime.

And you will have to be held accountable for that crime.

There cannot be a crime by birthright.

There can, there can. The Potsdam documents have it all

written about birthright. By consenting to this, they inflicted it on themselves,

brought it upon themselves. The exact wording is:

Germans

brought upon themselves by agreeing with Hitler.

Birthright can be part of a senten— birthplace can be part of the

sentence. No problem. No problem at all.

There are no innocent people there, no innocent people there.

This logic, this logic that, uh,

responsibility is exclusively individual, and none of those

who, on the rail

road, changed the switches for trains to Dachau bears any responsibility.

He just changed the switches. He was just a switchman.

None of those who read poetry to children, I mean, Ukrainian

children, refugees, read Pushkin poems to them. He bears no responsibility.

After all, he read them fucking poetry, excuse me.

So what responsibility does he bear, hold on?

Well, when he read to Ukrainian children who, uh,

were brought from the occupied territories,

reads poetry in Russian, he is engaged in propaganda.

He is Ge— he, he is an employee of Goebbels.

So, in order to,

it's just interesting, in order not to commit, um,

a crime, not, uh, be part of this propaganda,

these, uh, children must be placed somewhere isolated so that

no one talks to them.

What the hell? These children shouldn't be rounded up.

No, why are we discussing—

Other people rounded them up.

What should the criminal do? These, these people are criminals.

And have you, have you lost your minds?

Do you seriously want to discuss now what should be done with children

who were taken from occupied territories, the right way?

Are you idiots or what? They shouldn't be taken.

What does that have to do with it? Are you, are you seriously saying this?

Are we seriously going to discuss now how, what,

What, what, what regarding children, uh, abducted from the territory, constitutes

a crime, and what does not?

Abduction, abduction from their parents does.

Of course, who doubts it, Konstantin?

Then you want to read Pushkin to them or something else, or something else.

You are committing a crime, you are working with displaced persons

and engaging in propaganda among displaced persons.

That's what it's called.