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‘Your intelligence services suck’: walking through Moscow on war anniversary
Diana Magnay, Moscow Correspondent
Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the people we spoke to in Moscow’s Victory Park felt their country was on track.
“We are doing the right thing. Victory will be ours,” said a woman who went for a midday walk with her family. This is a common enough phrase, but what winning actually means depends on who you ask.
“Victory means complete defeat of the enemy,” declares his son Temihan. “The main enemy is the Nazis based there.”
“Ukrainians are like our brothers,” his mother added. “They are innocent of this matter.”
Temihan, 15, says he also bases his opinions on YouTube videos, Russian, Ukrainian and Sky News. “The people who cause havoc there are monsters, they’re not even human,” he says.
I have a question about Alexei Navalny. Temihan likes that he fought corruption, but he doesn’t know about the rest.
“All his life he continued to criticize the country that raised him. That’s a very bad thing,” he says.
We often come across people who participated in the war.
“What channel? What state? Hurry!” he barks as I approach. I tell him.
“As someone who participated in special military operations, please don’t bother me. I don’t recommend it,” he told me, with a hint of authority.
“Your island is small and your intelligence services are the worst.”
A 10-minute drive along Kutuzovsky Prospekt towards the Kremlin is Ukrainsky Prospekt.
There you will find a bronze statue of Lesha Ukrainka, a famous 19th century Ukrainian writer.
Muscovites used to come there to lay flowers when the war began and every time there was a major strike on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
Having been detained, police know to guard flowers at key moments, but they usually leave them there at least until nightfall.
On this anniversary, they were put away as soon as they were born.
Clips on social media show “Z” types threatening people as they leave.
There, a man who unfurled an “anti-war” banner was taken away by the police. If it’s your first offense, you’ll likely only get a warning, but it won’t be pleasant. And if it’s not a first offense, the legal consequences start to snowball.
In the evening, as we continued along Kutuzovsky Prospekt, we looked up at the high-rise office complex that marks the beginning of the famous Novy Arbat and houses part of the city administration.
I know from memory that the Moscow office of illegally annexed Crimea is located there, and when you take the elevator to the top you get a great view of the city.
As far as I can remember now, in this seemingly endless war, a giant “Z” lit up the building’s facade at night. Welcome to Z-Land as President Vladimir Putin drives this route to the Kremlin for a late-night meeting.
It reminds me of nations at war. For some in the capital, it’s a symbol of pride. For others, it is a sign of terrible shame.
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