War in Ukraine: Anti-war opinions can cost Russians their jobs

For 28-year-old geography teacher Kamran Manafly, it all started with a post on Instagram.

“I do not want to be a reflection of state propaganda,” he wrote on the social network, just a few days before it was restricted in Russia. “I have my own opinion! A lot of teachers do. And you know what? It’s not the same as the state’s opinion.”

He felt compelled to write the comment after a staff meeting at his high school in central Moscow, in which he and his colleagues were told how to talk to their students about the situation in Ukraine, so as not to deviate from the government position.

Two hours after posting it, he received a call from the school principal telling him to delete it immediately or quit his job.

“I didn’t want to delete it,” Manafly told the BBC. “I knew right away there was no point in arguing, so I thought it was best to just quit.”

When he arrived at school the next day, expecting to collect his things and sign his letter of resignation, he was barred from the premises.

“They said they had an order not to let me in. Kids started coming out on the street to support me, wave me off and so on. Then someone called the police and said they were organizing an unauthorized demonstration.”

Videos seen by the BBC show children surrounding Mr Manafly, clapping, smiling and waving goodbye.

He eventually recovered his belongings and the next day was able to meet with the school principal, where he was asked for a formal explanation as to why he had expressed his political views on social media. Mr. Manafly refused, expecting to resign anyway, but instead was told that the situation had changed and that he was going to be fired.

“Two days later, I was informed that I had been fired for unethical behavior at work,” Manafly said. “For me, the strangest thing is that they consider the expression of a personal opinion ‘immoral’.”

The school principal did not respond to a request for comment, but in WhatsApp messages seen by the BBC, parents at the school were told that Mr Manafly’s social media posts had breached his employment agreement with his parents. employers, which he denies.

After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, many thousands of Russians, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, voiced opposition to the so-called “special military operation,” signed petitions, posted on social media, or joined street protests. against the war. The state’s response has been heavy-handed, arresting thousands of protesters and introducing a new law that punishes the dissemination of “false” information about the Russian army with up to 15 years in prison.

Still, Manafly’s Instagram post did not break that law, according to Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which felt able to publish it in full even after the new regulations took effect.

Despite the heightened risk, for Katya Dolinina, the invasion of Ukraine was the moment when she couldn’t keep quiet any longer. As manager of two cinemas in the state-affiliated Moskino cinema chain, Ms. Dolinina tended to keep her political views to herself.

“I loved my job, I enjoyed it. I didn’t want to lose it,” he told the BBC, explaining why he had not participated in previous anti-government protests.

But when the war started, that changed. When his friends sent him an open letter against the so-called “special operation”, signed by people who work in the cultural sector, he did not hesitate to add his name.

“I agreed with the view that these operations should be stopped immediately, that this was not right,” he said.

Shortly after signing the letter, Ms. Dolinina received a call from her boss. She should remove her name immediately or resign. If she refused to do either, she would be fired from her, she was told. Moskino did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

“I felt like it didn’t matter anymore. Anyway, I don’t know how I would work if I wasn’t asked to resign. After this special operation started, I don’t feel any motivation to do anything that isn’t connected.” to it,” she said.

She resigned without issue, she said, because she was worried her employers would find a pretext to fire her, which would cause her more problems in the future.

The entire process of terminating her employment took just a couple of hours, and the atmosphere at her final meeting with her managers was cordial: they told Ms. Dolinina that they were sad to see her go, though she now wonders if that was just an attempt to avoid conflict

But for Anna Levadnaya, a pediatrician and influencer with more than two million followers on Instagram, the meeting in which she knew she had to resign was far from friendly.

He was on vacation abroad when the invasion of Ukraine began. That day, she posted a photo on Instagram from a plane window, with an image of a peace dove attached.

“I did not choose aggression,” he wrote. “I’m scared for all of us.” She described his family’s Ukrainian roots and called for “this hell” to end as soon as possible.

With so many followers on Instagram, the post was unlikely to go unnoticed by her employer, a major state medical center in Moscow.

Several days later, Ms. Levadnaya, still abroad, heard from colleagues that the director of the medical center had criticized her anti-war comments during the morning conference in front of more than 100 of her colleagues. She received a video recording of the event.

“It was a public disgrace,” Levadnaya told the BBC. “They made it clear that someone who doesn’t support the government’s goals shouldn’t be working in a state institution.”

The director gave a speech lasting several minutes in which he explained that if Ms. Levadnaya had been better informed about world events, she would support the “special operation”. Shortly after, she was instructed that she write a letter of resignation and, if she refused, she would be fired from her.

His letter consisted of a single sentence, explaining simply that it would be “impossible to continue his work.”

In her social media posts, Ms. Levadnaya explains current medical issues in an engaging way that makes sense to her audience. He has learned to live with internet trolls and angry comments, she said, but the Ukraine invasion has taken it to a different level.

“Even the covid vaccines, which created so much aggression, did not cause as much hatred between people as this war. There is a big divide in society now, because everyone only believes in their own truth.”

Many of those on the opposite side of that divide from the Russian state have had their lives upended by the war in Ukraine. Some have lost their jobs, others have quit in protest. Family ties have become strained, often along generational lines.

For Kamran Manafly and many thousands of others, the only option was to leave the country. But not everyone can, or wants to, take that step.

“Not all Russians who disagree with the Kremlin’s propaganda can leave this country,” said Katya Dolinina. “We are still here. We still have hope. We try not to give up.”