At least four educators in Russia have been turned in to the government for breaking a new law that bans people from talking disparagingly about the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the Russian military, the Washington Post reports.
Snitching in a way that would make Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proud, students have taken to recording their teachers’ lessons and turning the recordings in to authorities, prompting police investigations.
“So long as Russia doesn’t behave itself in a civilized way, this will go on forever,” she explained, saying Putin “wanted to get to Kyiv, to overthrow Zelensky and the government. This is a sovereign state,” Irina Gen, a 55-year-old teacher in the equivalent of a junior high told students when asked why Russia was being excluded by international sports competitions. “There’s a sovereign government there.”
Similarly to DeSantis’s directive to turn over teachers who acknowledge LGBTQ people’s existence to their students, Russia’s law is meant to suppress discussion about Russia’s invasion of the former Soviet republic, particularly given the poor performance of the Russian military, which was expected to dominate the Ukrainian defenders within days.
When the law was enacted, Putin urged students to turn in the “scum and traitors” who question his leadership and “spit them out like a fly. … I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country.” In the same way, DeSantis wants students and their parents to turn in teachers who acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people who he falsely claims are grooming children to choose to be gay, which is an impossibility.