In today’s Moscow, everything feels carved in stone, never-ending, never going to change—most days it seems that our current authorities are going to hold power forever, the war is anything but close to an end, and what we live in is just a Polaroid snapshot, slowly fading as things very gradually become worse.
In small bites, the government keeps passing new repressive laws that harm the most vulnerable. They banned medical transition for trans people, restricted access to oral contraception for women, and curbed the rights of those with mental disorders. Men are suffering an extra blow as the Kremlin keeps shutting down ways to avoid the draft, even for those least suited to combat—for example, men who have been notified of their eligibility can no longer leave the country. The official rhetoric is that it is not the Ukrainian people that “we” are attacking but “the West,” with its “liberal values,” and if fighting such a huge and ghostlike enemy seems doomed, it is also noble.
