In Bangkok this week, members of an anti-war Russian-language rock band fought against deportation to Russia, held in what supporters described as a cramped, hot 80-person immigrant holding cell.
On Wednesday in Moscow, the lower house of parliament passed a law that will allow the Russian government to confiscate the property of Russians living abroad who, in the words of the speaker of the legislature, are “burning our country.”
The two developments, though thousands of miles apart, reflected the same grim calculus from the Kremlin: Using new legislation and apparent diplomatic pressure on other countries, it is turning the screws on Russia’s widespread anti-war diaspora.
“Historical Russia has risen,” President Vladimir V. Putin said at a meeting with supporters of his presidential campaign on Wednesday, reiterating his claim that the time had come to purge Russian society of pro-Western elements. “All these scum that are ever-present in every society are slowly being washed away.”
Under the law, any Russian, even one in exile, found to be involved in “crimes against national security” – including criticizing the invasion of Ukraine – could have their assets confiscated. Mr Putin is expected to sign the law, although it is not yet clear how widely or aggressively the Kremlin plans to use it.
But the swift passage of the law – which passed the State Duma unanimously – is another signal that the Kremlin, having quashed dissent at home, is increasingly turning its attention to criticism from abroad. Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled after the war began, including many celebrities who can still reach their fans through platforms such as YouTube, which remains accessible in Russia.
Among the first to feel this growing pressure are popular artists who have drawn large audiences in places popular with Russian immigrants such as Dubai and Southeast Asia. In recent weeks, Russian anti-war celebrities have accused Thailand and Indonesia of bowing to Russian pressure to cancel their shows, while an anti-war rapper found himself banned from re-entering the United Arab Emirates, his adopted home.
The most dramatic case unfolded after members of the rock group Bi-2, originally from Belarus and one of Russia’s most popular bands, were arrested in Thailand last week for violating immigration. Their supporters said Russian officials spent days pressuring Thailand to deport some of them to Russia, where the musicians could face prosecution for criticizing the war.
By Wednesday, the rockers had been spared that fate thanks to the intervention of Israeli and Australian diplomats, who arranged for all seven band members to be deported to Israel, according to the group’s lawyer, who requested anonymity for security reasons. . (Four are citizens of Israel and one is Australian.)
The extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to send the rockers to Russia was unclear, but on Tuesday, the group said in a statement that Thai authorities canceled an earlier plan to deport some of them to Israel after Russian diplomats visited the immigration center. where he was kept.
Analysts and human rights advocates see the case as stark evidence of the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive efforts to punish Russians who speak out against Mr. Putin abroad — especially when they do so in non-Western countries interested in maintaining good relations with Moscow.
“This is a special operation,” said Dmitry Gudkov, an exiled Russian opposition politician close to Bi-2, referring to Russia’s efforts to send members of the group to Russia. “Their task is to grab someone big out of the country to show they can grab anyone, anywhere.”
The rock band’s hits form part of the soundtrack to the early Putin era, and in later years the band matched with the Russian elite at marquee events – playing, for example, at Mr Putin’s annual economic conference in St Petersburg in 2019. But until Last year, Bi-2 singer Igor Bortnik wrote that Putin’s Russia caused “only disgust and disgust.”
Russia’s foreign ministry denied that it intervened in the Bi-2 case in Thailand, but referred to the group’s members immediately after their arrest as “sponsors of terrorism.” A Russian lawmaker, Andrei Lugovoi, said the country awaited Bi-2’s deportation “with open arms” and predicted: “Soon they will be playing and singing on spoons and metal plates, tap dancing in front of their cells.”
(Mr. Lugovoi is no stranger to Russian interference abroad, having been charged by Britain in 2007 with poisoning a Putin critic in London.)
Thailand, which has largely maintained a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and is a prime destination for Russian tourists, said it was following standard procedure. Asked by a reporter on Wednesday about the possible deportation to Russia of members of the Bi-2 band, the country’s foreign minister, Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara, said that if it was found that they had “committed illegal acts,” then Thailand “must follow through, procedure.”
The band released a statement from their concert promoter, VPI Event, acknowledging that they had failed to obtain the proper visas for the band’s Jan. 24 show on the Thai island of Phuket. But the VPI claimed the Thai authorities’ decision to arrest the artists – rather than sanction the concert organizers – was unusually harsh.
“We are making every effort to free the performers, but we are facing unprecedented pressure at every stage,” the company said in a statement while the musicians were still behind bars, adding that shows in Thailand by two other Russian anti-war acts had recently been canceled . weeks. “Campaign to cancel concerts under pressure from Russian consulate started in December”.
Some pro-Kremlin figures have begun to praise Russia’s Foreign Ministry for becoming more aggressive in lobbying anti-war Russians abroad.
“The Foreign Ministry has started to really work on this issue,” Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst who often appears on Russian state television, said in a telephone interview. Russian diplomats, he added, had been “actively informing” foreign governments in recent months about Russians who “went over to the side of the enemy.”
Alisher Morgenshtern, a rapper who had criticized the war and moved to Dubai, said last Friday that the United Arab Emirates had barred him from re-entering the country. Ruslan Bely, an anti-war comedian, had two shows canceled in Thailand in January.
Another Russian anti-war comedian, Maksim Galkin, last week announced a show in Bali, Indonesia, days after Russian state media reported that his two scheduled shows in Thailand had been cancelled.
But last weekend, Mr Galkin told his 9 million Instagram followers that the Bali show had also been cancelled. Indonesian authorities, he wrote, pulled him back at the border and told him they were doing so at the request of the Russian government.
“It’s funny,” Mr. Galkin wrote, that the Russian state spends so much effort on “the manic persecution of dissenting artists abroad.”
The head of Indonesia’s Ministry of Law and Human Rights’ regional office in Bali, Romi Yudianto, said he was not familiar with Mr Galkin’s case, but that Indonesia “has its own sovereignty” and the right to reject unwanted visitors. .
But Mr Markov, the pro-Kremlin analyst, described the crackdown on anti-war commentators, as well as the new law allowing the confiscation of property of Russian critics of the war, as part of the same government effort.
“This is a message to those who are against Putin,” but are not sure how loud to voice their disapproval, Mr. Markov said. It’s a reminder to them, he said, that if they speak out, even outside of Russia, “don’t think you’re going to be OK.”
The report was made by Sui-Lee Wee, Hasya Nidita, Muktita Suhartono and Oleg Matsnev.