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It seems the Kremlin has largely given up on gathering troops for its war in Ukraine through mobilization. Likely because Russia's leadership remains fearful of a domestic political backlash. Instead, the Russian authorities have been upping efforts in recent months to encourage men to sign up voluntarily and…

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Talk of a second mobilization wave in Russia has been on everyone’s lips in recent weeks. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov claimed it would begin at the start of January. And, citing Western intelligence officials, CNN reported last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin was considering…

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Many thanks to my dear friend Chris Booth for his help in translating and editing this article.

On Saturday morning, people leaving metro station ‘Teatralnaya’ were immediately greeted by barriers and riot police. But nobody was planning a demonstration.…

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Many thanks to Kevin Rothrock for his help in translating and editing this article.

It’s March 2018. President Putin delivers his annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly, two and a half weeks before the nation’s presidential election. In the …

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All the previous month I was in a state of nebulous burnout. The war, the sudden unprepared move to a foreign country, health problems, etc., have drained me. And now I'm slowly recovering.

This week I had the honour of writing an op-ed for the New York Times. Many of my colleagues and friends including myself after the start of Putin's war with Ukraine began to turn to the publications of Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a Soviet dissident who had gone through the KGB's punitive psychiatric system. Her observations previously seemed too radical and at times inadequate. Now they look like grimly accurate diagnoses. There is no prophet in his motherland.

“Since the 16th century,” wrote the dissident Russian journalist Valeria Novodvorskaya, “we have existed according to the laws of manic depressive psychosis.”

Published two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ms. Novodvorskaya’s article captured a particularly chaotic, deranged period of Russian history. But it also makes a long-term argument about Russian society. Since the time of Ivan the Terrible, Ms. Novodvorskaya argued, Russia has suffered from manic depressive psychosis — “flaying” the weak government and “kissing the whip” of the fierce autocrat. The result was a country “hanging between fascism and communism,” and citizens unable to live like normal people.

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Those are the quotes from the article called "Russia No. 6", published in January 1994. The title of the article is a reference to Anton Chekhov's novel "Ward No. 6," which centers on the provincial mental asylum. Inspired by Novodvorskaya's piece, I decided to transfer this metaphor to today's events. And I think it works and conveys what is happening to our society very well.

Her article was published two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and two years later, on the eve of the scandalous presidential election in 1996, a criminal case was brought against Novodvorskaya for inciting ethnic hatred. The case was dismissed after a few months. Today, the penalty for such words in the sterilized information space in Russia would be at least permanent deportation from the country - as happened to Idrak Mirzalizade, a comedian who joked about xenophobia in Russian society. Any criticism of the state and society in Russia, even in its artistic form, is considered an insult in Putin's Russia and is liable to severe punishment.

In 1969, when she was a 19-year-old student, Novodvorskaya spent two years in a psychiatric hospital for distributing anti-Soviet leaflets. Vladimir Putin was not much younger than Novodvorskaya at the time - he was 18 years old, entered the university and became a member of the Communist Party there, only to start working for the KGB later. The future president of Russia will revive the system of punitive psychiatry - both literally and metaphorically.

Valeria Novodvorskaya died in 2014 a few months after Russia's annexation of Crimea, which she strongly condemned. She was called the "grandmother of Russian democracy".

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A little about Marina Ovsyannikova, who may be charged with a criminal offense for spreading intentionally "fake" news about the military.

As one of Ovsyannikova's acquaintances told me, for many years she worked as an editor in the international department in the directorate of information programs of Channel One. That is, she did not write the texts that went on air. Her job was to translate direct speech of foreign politicians, businessmen, cultural figures and ordinary people into Russian, as well as creating video reviews. We can say that she was a cog in a big machine of Channel One's news production.

Ovsyannikova's colleagues told me they are very surprised by her act, because they have never heard her talk about politics. “Mostly about children, dogs and the house,” recalls her friend.

On Monday, when Ovsyannikova burst into the air of The Vremya with an extraordinary anti-war protest, she was on shift. Which means she just came to work and was there at the appointed time.

The Vremya program is broadcast live three times a day. Usually it is guarded by several people. One of them usually sits a couple of meters from the host. Why this security guard was asleep at the wheel is unknown. Perhaps he did not react to Ovsyannikova since she is a long-term employee of the channel. Besides during the broadcast, make-up artists can always approach the host to fix their makeup, and the guard might not have recognized Ovsyannikova. Her colleagues nervously joke that no one else will be allowed to come to work with broadsheets anymore.

Ovsyannikova was fined 30,000 roubles ($280) on Tuesday, it was related to organising an unauthorised public event by publishing the video message. After the hearing she said she had been questioned for 14 hours and was not given access to legal help. There are still risks that a criminal case will be opened against Ovsyannikova related to her perfomance on air.

On Monday evening Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted one of the main news program on Russian TV, shouting: “Stop the war. No to war.” She also held a sign saying: “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

It lasted only 5 seconds but social media exploded. Ovsyannikova also released a pre-recorded video in which she expressed her shame at spreading “Kremlin propaganda.”

“Regrettably, for a number of years, I worked on Channel One and worked on Kremlin propaganda, I am very ashamed of this right now. Ashamed that I was allowed to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of the Russian people. We were silent in 2014 when this was just beginning. We did not go out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned [opposition leader Alexei] Navalny,” she said.

“We are just silently watching this anti-human regime. And now the whole world has turned away from us and the next 10 generations won’t be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war.”

“What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor,” she said. “The responsibility of this aggression lies on the shoulders of only one person: Vladimir Putin.”

She urged fellow Russians to join anti-war protests in order to bring an end to the conflict. “Only we have the power to stop all this madness. Go to the protests. Don’t be afraid of anything. They can’t imprison us all.”

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