View essay: I left the autocracy of Moscow but apathy followed me to Belgrade

Leaving an aggressive, autocratic mafia state at war with its neighbor for a country ruled by a single all-encompassing party that has been in power for more than a decade may not seem like a sensible move.

However that is what I chose.

The reasons were simple: I was an outsider in Russia, and the Balkans, especially Serbia, are my home.

It would be unfair to say that I was not accepted in Russia. In fact, I sometimes felt more comfortable there than in my home country.

What prompted me to leave was my belief that there was no concrete way for me to stay and take part in a direct struggle against a regime in a foreign country.

As a foreign citizen, any action I took even remotely against President Vladimir Putin and the ruling elites could have resulted in time spent in Russia’s notoriously cruel prison system with no hope of an appeal — and no guarantee that I would survive the ordeal unscathed.

As a political scientist, I knew that oppressive regimes rely on people’s hesitation and fear. Having spent several years in Putin’s Russia by then, I understood that my attempts at resistance would be ill-advised and largely irrelevant.

Contrary to popular opinion, academic circles were free, to some extent

Prior to that, I was a lecturer at RUDN University in Moscow for almost four years.

If someone imagines that most of the Russian universities before the full-scale invasion in February 2022 resembled the places of intellectual monism, which left no room for critical thinking, by and large they would be mistaken.

While protests in Moscow have been effectively banned since 2020 – due to the pandemic and following the protests in Belarus and the poisoning of Alexei Navalny – academic circles have continued to collaborate and participate in various programs involving their western counterparts.

Almost all of our French students were very critical of Russian foreign policy in their dissertation and no one could censure them in any way.

Indeed, cooperation has been encouraged.

As someone who works in academia, I had to write a certain number of papers each year that needed to be evaluated in western databases like Scopus or Web of Science. This was a formal clause in my contract.

My comparative politics department had a dual masters program involving Sciences Po Bordeaux, a French academic institution.

Almost all of our French students were very critical of Russian foreign policy in their dissertation and no one could censure them in any way.

People opposed war, but quietly and often for all the wrong reasons

During my years in Moscow, I managed to make friends with a circle of colleagues from different universities (MGU Lomonosov, MGIMO, Higher School of Economics and RGGU), as well as think tanks such as the Russian International Affairs Council.

Most of my friends and acquaintances opposed the war, but very few of them dared to express their views outside private conversations.

There were also several reasons to be against the war, but most of them were rationalizations, such as “this is bad for Russia.” Moral or ethical concerns often didn’t come first in our conversations.

My friends… all wanted to disappear into an imaginary “happy place” they once dreamed of themselves and wait out the storm.

At times, the footage, while highly intellectual, was short-sighted and lacked empathy, especially in the context of the Russian occupation of Crimea and open support for so-called “rebels” in Donbass.

Yet as 2022 began, there was a sense of shock, and many of my friends – some of whom had tangible contacts in the Russian Foreign Ministry – were quite surprised to see a full-scale invasion of Ukraine take place.

Then censorship laws were introduced. Writing or discussing the war critically could, in practice, have resulted in dismissal from academic institutions or the aforementioned think tanks, including an ordeal with the police and prosecutor’s office.

At worst, there was – and still is – the possibility of actual jail time.

These laws have plunged my friends into a state of apathy and depression. None of them thought of actively opposing the regime; they all wanted to disappear into an imaginary “happy place” they once dreamed of themselves and wait out the storm.

Wanting to leave for a while, this is when I packed up and left

Driven by an increasingly oppressive climate and annoyed by the denial of the people, I had decided to leave even before the actual invasion of February 24th began.

Several days earlier – a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the fictional people’s republics of the Donbass region – I had come to the conclusion that a war of greater proportions was coming.

I withdrew all the money I had in the bank and changed it into euros.

I had extended my stay in Russia until July because I had promised my colleagues that I would finish the semester and I also had to think about my students.

Over the next few months, I would send this money back to my family in Serbia piecemeal via a money transfer service I hadn’t heard of since companies like Western Union went out of business in Russia.

I had extended my stay in Russia until July because I had promised my department colleagues that I would finish the semester and I also had to think about my students. Then I packed up and left.

Back in Serbia, I found myself free to express my opinion

Returning to Belgrade was a breath of fresh air, despite my fears that I would once again find myself in a hostile atmosphere fueled by pro-government tabloids and media outlets that continually peddled anger, fear and paranoia, a consequence of the destructive politics of the Serbia of the 90s.

I could finally write what I wanted and not be afraid of being arrested or deported.

I immediately decided to open my Twitter page simply because I had to share so much anger and disappointment that had built up inside me during the first half of the year.

In my absence, even Belgrade had changed.

In a twist of fate, the largely pro-Putin Serbia had become a place of refuge for thousands of Russians who could no longer bear to live under a ruthless regime.

Suddenly, Russian was being spoken in all public places, from supermarkets to cafes.

The Ukrainians are fighting an existential battle and might as well liberate Russia

Not surprisingly, I made some new friends.

This time the opinions were expressed more strongly; some even took to the streets and held anti-war demonstrations in Belgrade’s main square.

I was surprised, however, that most did not want to get involved in politics at all, and the reasons for being against the war were those I heard from my friends in Moscow.

The same black cloud of apathy and inertia had followed the Russian émigrés to a sunny Balkan country full of life.

In their eyes, the war against Ukraine is mostly wrong because it is “destroying Russia”.

The death and destruction of Ukraine, in their minds, is only secondary, and all this can sometimes make me feel as if I never left Moscow.

The same black cloud of apathy and inertia had followed the Russian émigrés to a sunny Balkan country full of life.

Ultimately, these feelings shaped my expectations of Russia’s change, and my intellectual intuition tells me to turn to Ukrainians who are fighting an existential battle.

Their strength will bring freedom to their homeland and most likely liberate Russia as well.

Aleksandar Đokić is a political scientist and analyst who is currently the author of a weekly column for Bloomberg Adria, with credits in Novaya Gazeta. Previously he was a lecturer at RUDN University.

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