“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Creighton (1887)
Another Russian dissident has died in custody. The dead man, Alexander Demidenko (61), had been arrested on charges of drinking alcohol in public and charged with a felony for arms trafficking. However, it seems his true crime was helping Ukrainian citizens escape from Russia back to Ukraine.
The reader might reasonably assume Demidenko was a freedom fighter who enabled young Ukrainians to return home to help wage war against the invading Russians. This characterization was not the case — at least this time. He was reportedly assisting an old woman with cancer to cross the border when the police arrested him.
Last October, the Russian site “The Insider” ran the story ‘A volunteer who helped Ukrainians return home from Russia was detained in the Belgorod region.’ The English language site Meduza offered this translation.”
Alexander Demidenko, a Russian man who works as a volunteer to help Ukrainian citizens in Russia return to Ukraine, has been arrested in Russia’s Belgorod region.
According to local media, on October 17, Demidenko was abducted at the Kolotilovka-Pokrovka checkpoint on the Russia-Ukraine border, likely by officers from the Chechen Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) units that operate the checkpoint. The 61-year-old was reportedly helping an elderly woman with cancer cross the border at the time of his capture.
Demidenko’s wife, Natalia, told journalists that her husband was briefly brought to their home on October 20 and that she saw numerous bruises on his body. She said that police and Chechen Special Forces officers searched the apartment and confiscated a laptop as well as “some kind of flare gun or pistol” that her husband kept “for self-defense.”
According to his lawyer, Yelena Palimova, Demidenko has escaped the Russian criminal justice system by dying. While no cause of death is yet known, rational people will rightly bet he was assisted to the grave by Russian authorities.
It seems Demidenko expired on Friday, April 5, but officials did not tell anyone until Monday, April 8. Why would the authorities wait three days to tell Palimova her client had died unless they were getting their story straight?
After his initial arrest, Demidenko reportedly served ten days and was briefly released. During that time, his son said his father had received a phone call warning him, “If you try to leave the country, it will be worse.” He said the incident left his father feeling depressed and suicidal.
Eventually, FSB officers rearrested Demidenko and shipped him to a pre-trial detention center. He was reportedly charged with unlawful possession of weapons after authorities found a hand grenade in his home. Demidenko’s son claimed that the authorities may have framed him. We can file that under “duh.”
Trump will consider the death of a Russian citizen a positive reflection of Putin and his governing style. The MAGAs will take their cues from their godhead and cheer this latest state murder as evidence of a steady hand on the wheel. These deluded saps should crack a few history books. A survey of Soviet history under Stalin in the 1930s would be the place to start.
In the official tally, the state murdered 681,692 Russian citizens during the Great Purge of 1937–1938. Unofficial estimates estimate the total number at 700,000–1,200,000. When extrajudicial executions are that common, you can bet the farm that many ‘loyalists” — aka “Make the USSR Great Again” zealots — were lined up against the wall along with the people they spat on.
Supporting autocrats is like owning a Pit Bull trained to kill. You think it will keep you safe, but there is a real chance you will be the victim. (See also guns in the house).
Demidenko is sadly just another entry in the long list of people killed by a state that has no respect for life or the law. America will be that state in 2025 if enough people think anti-LGBTQ laws and denying women reproductive rights are sufficient reason to ignore the threat of the dictatorship Trump has already promised he would introduce on Day One. And anyone who thinks Day Two+ will be any different has no idea how power works.