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Why we all need oDR’s reporting on Russia’s war in Ukraine [1]
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Date: 2023-07
Russia, the biggest country in the world, is 17 million square kilometres. Too often, English-language coverage of its politics looks at less than one of them. “People focus too much on the Kremlin, often, potentially, in an unhelpful way, in the sense that it's a guessing game,” says Tom.
Before the 2022 invasion, oDR had long been covering social movements right across Russia. These included, Tom says, “people's movements to defend the environment, defend labour rights, the new feminist movement, the huge number of so-called urbanistic movements, which are aimed at protecting architectural or public sites. And, of course, the movement for free expression.
“All of these people were putting huge amounts of energy into this stuff,” he continues. “And they were getting some kind of results, they were at least protecting some kind of space to be able to say what they want, do what they want, and have their lives organised how they want.”
That work, he says, has been powered by his Russian colleagues, Tatyana Dvornikova and Polina Aronson.
“The question now is, how do you treat Russian society as an autonomous actor in conditions where the public sphere has been demolished? When the journalists have left the country, when there are no public protests, when the Russian anti-war movement essentially failed, right at the beginning?
“And that’s the major question for us at oDR: how do you report on society when it seems no longer to exist?”
In response, Tom says, oDR tries to focus not only on the complex positions Russian society has over the war, but to also look at how society is in flux. This could be people “helping Ukrainian refugees, facing socio-economic challenges or being sucked into the so-called patriotic ‘Z culture’ that feeds on Russia's war in this horrendous parasitic fashion, that revels in the bloodshed, bombings and disregard for human life”.
“We still think that Russian society might be an actor, and we're trying to figure out how,” says Tom.
Figuring this out has involved conducting rare interviews, including with Russian feminists organising against the war and people arrested for protesting against Putin. Sometimes, it has involved talking about things many of us don’t want to hear; the team has broken stories about Russian police torturing anti-war protesters. And in doing so, they’ve helped us all understand better – including when maybe we don’t want to. Earlier this month, oDR ran an article explaining why Russians who oppose the war aren’t taking to the streets.
Most English-language coverage of the war in Ukraine comes from one of two groups of people: analysis-lite liberals, who rightly support Ukraine but seem to ask few questions, or ‘tankies’ who blame the war entirely on NATO, as though Russia’s society, capital and state had no agency at all.
I’m proud that my colleagues at oDR have produced brilliant journalism that doesn’t fall into either of these traps.
Instead they’ve taken a position that is, as Tom says, “100% behind the Ukrainian people's right to defend themselves against Russian aggression. Ukrainians have a right to live in a country that is not being attacked by the forces of a foreign power. They have a right to determine their future, both inside the country, and in terms of its geopolitical orientation. That is the absolute baseline.”
But they go far beyond that, too. They delve deep into both Russia and Ukraine, into the conflicts between their societies, ruling classes and states, to help explore what’s really going on. So it can be challenged.
There is no outlet like it. Today, it needs your money: please give generously.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/crowdfund-donate-support-russia-ukraine-small-team/
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