Family Fracture: Russian Parents Accused Of Reporting Own Children To Police For Protesting Vladimir Putin's War Against Ukraine
Jan. 30 2023, Published 5:30 p.m. ET
Russian parents are accused of telling on their own children and reporting them to the police for protesting Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war against Ukraine, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a shocking development to come as Russia struggles to take Ukraine nearly one year after first invading the neighboring nation in February 2022, the war has reportedly started to fracture families and friendships within Russia.
Even more shocking are reports that Russian parents are “shopping” their own children to Russian police for opposing the war, with some Russians comparing the current situation to the totalitarian police state created by former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin almost 100 years ago.
That is the revelation shared by Daily Star this week, with the outlet citing instances where family members are reporting family members and friends are reporting friends for publicly opposing Putin’s bloody conflict in Ukraine.
"We are living in a Soviet hell with friends reporting friends to police, parents disowning their children,” said one Russian mother.
“The level of heartache is very hard to describe,” the mother added.
During one alleged incident in Moscow, a Russian father reportedly tipped off police that his daughter was opposing the war in Ukraine online.
Although the girl was detained and then arrested over allegations that she called for Russians to be killed on Instagram, she was ultimately released because there was no evidence supporting her father’s claims.
"He thought it was his duty to go to the police and file a report,” Elmira Khalitova said of the shocking incident. “He'd found another enemy of the people and was bringing them to justice.”
"It's disgusting that all this is encouraged – that the government encourages people to do this,” she added.
Elsewhere, a father in Siberia allegedly reported his own son to Russian police for discrediting the Russian military, a husband in Moscow reported his Ukrainian wife for opposing the ongoing war, and a 10-year-old schoolgirl was detained in Moscow after her headmaster accused her of creating a social media profile photo using the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag.
"This practice goes back to Joseph Stalin but it is also very common in dictatorial regimes to report on your neighbors and sometimes even your friends,” said Sergey Radchenko, a Russian-born British historian, regarding the shocking similarities between modern-day Russia and Soviet-era Russia.