I lived in Russia until October 2022 – ie eight months after the February invasion of Ukraine after which it became illegal to refer to it other than as a “special military operation” (SMO). Almost immediately people I knew were fearful of what they might be heard saying, whether it be on WhatsApp, Zoom, on the street, or even sitting alone with me in a restaurant. Even when I used the term “invasion” or “war” people would invariably reply referring to the SMO. It soon became clear to me that it was not only fear of being heard and arrested because of that particular conversation with me, but also people were also practicing using the SMO term so that they did not mistakenly use the terms “war” or “invasion” on some other occasion.

I have also worked and lived in China and was conscious of the need to be careful what I said, but in Russia it was different because I had also lived in Russia before Vladimir Putin became president in 2000 and subsequently for many years on and off until 2022. In 2016 I wrote a research report for a Russian university and was advised to remove the term “annexation” when referring to the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014, but in the following year some of my Masters degree students in my course in the Higher School of Economics — where I taught a course on Russian foreign policy — were still prepared to openly say in class that “we do not trust our government.” They would not do that now!

Nor would these students now walk down a street waving an Ukrainian flag. This is not only because they might be arrested but because many Russians do regard Ukraine as a terrorist state and thus supported the SMO and would take offence. This is not only due to Putin’s propaganda, but around 15,000 people had been killed in Eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022 by Ukrainian nationalists. Many of these dead – including women and children (even babies) – identified themselves as Russian rather than Ukrainian and had relatives in Russia.

On 4 July 2024, Sir John Sawers — a former head of M16, Britain’s secret intelligence agency and former Ambassador to Egypt — told Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times that Israel is now a different country from being a “bit like an extension of Europe in the decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s” and that now “more and more a sense within the Israeli mainstream parties” is that “the solution to Israel’s Palestinian problem is to expel the Palestinians” from Gaza.

Australian politicians such as Peter Dutton and Chris Minns are very ignorant of the wider world and might be surprised that the psychology of many Australian Jews and their indignant supporters would easily fit into a Russian milieu, and how their own psychology of censorship has much in common with dictators who want to eliminate people and views that they don’t like.