Greatest Threat to Russians Now Comes from Zombified Lumpen Putin Regime has Created and Supported, Babchenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 25 – Russian realities have changed, Arkady Babchenko says, and now the greatest threat to life and limb of those with independent views comes not from the FSB or other force structures but from the zombified lumpen the Putin regime has encouraged to take out its aggression on those the Kremlin doesn’t like, Arkady Babchenko says.

            After September 11, Americans recognized that the situation had changed and took actions to improve their security; but Russians have failed to see that their situation has changed as well as a result of the Putin regime’s cultivation and legitimation of hatred and aggression (nv.ua/opinion/babchenko/zashchiti-sebja-sam-o-nenavisti-i-agressii-v-rossii-2083992.html).

                Indeed, the rise of this group of people quite capable of attacking anyone the Kremlin doesn’t like at any time and in ways that allows the regime some plausible deniability has pushed the FSB and other security agencies into second place as far as threats to the personal security of Russians, the journalist says. 

            In Russia today, Babchenko continues, “the chief ideology … has become hatred and aggression,” and the lumpen has accepted that and is now acting upon it.  Other Russians must protect themselves at work and at home and demand that their employers protect them rather than continue to act on the basis of the false premise that everything is just as it was.

            There are all kinds of things that employers and individuals can do to protect themselves, and Russians should avail themselves of all the legal means of self-defense and insist that their employers, if they are like Ekho Moskvy and likely to be targeted by the lumpen, do the same. Those who work for government outlets don’t face the same threats, at least so far.

            “Defending one’s life and health is the primary obligation of every individual,” Babchenko continues, even when that requires when circumstances change, adding to one’s own burdens.  That is something Russians should have seen coming and acted upon at least after conditions began to change a few years ago.

            Given the drumbeat of attacks on people in Moscow and elsewhere, this is not paranoia, as some might think, the Russian journalist says; it is experience.  And Russians need to recognize that “reality has changed” and they must change with it or face ever more disasters ahead.