Russia constantly claims to offer an alternative to the Western world. It speaks of “traditional values”—order, faith, patriotism, and family. To many disillusioned by Western politics, this sounds appealing. However, Russian values are not spiritual or moral. Rather, they are hierarchical, brutal, and enforced through fear. What the Kremlin markets as stability is, in reality, stagnation. What it praises as tradition often masks decay.
To adopt Russian values means trading truth for propaganda, justice for silence, and civilization for cruelty. Therefore, this article exposes what Russian values truly look like on the ground—and why no society should ever embrace them.
Authoritarianism masquerading as tradition
In Russia, the state demands loyalty not through persuasion but through punishment. Criticism isn’t debated—it’s criminalized. From schoolchildren to pensioners, everyone lives under constant surveillance.
No crime is necessary for arrest. People have been jailed for memes, blank signs, birthday parties, or even for singing. Authorities constantly monitor protests, use facial recognition to identify participants, and quickly deliver names to the police. Those targeted immediately face unemployment, fines, or detention.
Elections don’t represent democracy—they mimic it. Real opponents are jailed, exiled, or poisoned. Silence quickly becomes criminal. Failure to stand during the anthem draws suspicion. Speaking against war invites treason charges.
Consequently, Russian values demand fear instead of trust, submission instead of discussion.
Torture as a philosophy of Power
Russian torture isn’t accidental. It is deliberate, institutional, and systematic. The vocabulary sounds euphemistic, but the cruelty is real. The goal isn’t merely pain—it’s domination, humiliation, and psychological collapse.
Zvonok Putinu (“A phone call to Putin”)
This phrase might sound absurd—until you understand its horror. A TA‑57 field telephone is used to electrocute victims. Wires are attached to fingers, genitals, or ears. Turning the crank sends electricity through the body. Pain floods the nervous system. Muscles seize. Victims collapse or pass out. Interrogators, meanwhile, mockingly call it a “call to Putin.”
This method has been reported across regions—from Russian prisons to Chechnya to occupied Ukraine. The consistency reveals that it isn’t improvised—it is taught, replicated, and normalized.
The Karbyshev Method
Named after General Dmitry Karbyshev, who died under Nazi torture, this method mimics death by cold. Guards soak prisoners in water and expose them to freezing temperatures or ice-covered floors. Often handcuffed, immobile, and naked, the victims enter hypothermia. Shivering becomes silence. Resistance fades into submission.
Kyryza, Slonit, and the Euphemism of Brutality
The Russian prison system speaks in code. Terms like Kyryza and Slonit refer to specific tortures. While meanings vary by region, they typically describe beatings, suffocation, or stress positions.
Slonit, likely derived from “slon” (elephant), involves sealing a victim’s head in a gas mask, cutting off oxygen, and sometimes introducing tear gas or ammonia. Panic, choking, and loss of consciousness follow.
Kyryza likely refers to immobilizing limbs in painful angles, followed by systematic beatings. Prison guards or designated inmate enforcers (pressovshchiki) carry out the abuse.
Other institutional methods
Moreover, other common torture practices include:
- Mock executions: Victims are blindfolded, marched to basements or forests, and forced to hear the click of an empty trigger.
- Sexualized violence: Rape with broomsticks or bottles is filmed and used as blackmail.
- Suspension torture: Limbs are tied; victims are hung from ceilings until joints dislocate.
- Sleep deprivation: Lights stay on. Noise blasts. Food is denied. Minds collapse.
- Gas mask torture: Chemical agents like ammonia are pumped into airtight masks.
- Pressovshchiki: Inmate enforcers beat or rape others on orders from guards.
Clearly, these are not isolated incidents. They are procedural. Well-known. Rehearsed. Regularly applied.
Bribery replaces justice
In Russia, law does not function as protection—it functions as a marketplace. Police demand bribes to drop charges. Judges alter verdicts for cash. Doctors and teachers require envelopes.
Parents bribe military officers to spare sons from war. Patients pay to avoid year-long queues. Defendants pay to avoid punishment.
Bribery isn’t a deviation from the norm—it is the norm. It defines Russian legal culture.
A nation without sanitation
Outside the cities, modern infrastructure vanishes. In countless villages, sewage systems don’t exist. Wooden outhouses stand behind homes. During winter, residents trudge through snow to relieve themselves. Pipes freeze. Infections spread.
Garbage trucks rarely appear. Waste piles rot in alleys. Soviet-era housing blocks crumble. Elevators remain broken for years. Heating fails regularly. Repairs only happen when bribes are paid.
Soviet medicine with 21st-century neglect
Hospitals are broken. Equipment malfunctions. Medications disappear. In cities, people wait months. In rural regions, they simply give up.
Doctors still expect bribes. Ambulances often arrive late—if at all. Clinics open late and close early. Mental illness is punished, not treated. Psychiatric patients are sedated rather than helped. Prisoners are routinely denied basic medical care.
As a result, people die not due to illness, but because the system chooses not to care.
A culture of alcohol, drugs, and crime
Alcoholism is widespread. Children start drinking young. Adults drink to forget. Domestic violence persists, ignored by authorities.
Heroin floods neglected towns. Synthetic opioids follow. HIV spreads via shared needles. Pharmacies secretly sell illegal sedatives.
Where the state fails, crime steps in. Former soldiers run gangs. Police often cooperate. Fear governs daily life.
Villages that time forgot
Many Russian villages remain frozen in time. Internet is absent. Roads are impassable. Jobs don’t exist. Wooden homes built in the 1930s still house families. Horses replace cars. Wells replace plumbing.
Young people flee to cities. The elderly are left behind. Some freeze. Others starve. Many simply wait for the end.
If American values are zero, Russian values are below zero
Yes, the United States created the opioid crisis. Greedy corporations profited. Politicians looked away. The damage was real.
However, journalists exposed it. Courts responded. Citizens protested. Despite deep failure, resistance happened.
In contrast, Russia permits no protest. No media coverage. No accountability. Victims disappear. Dissenters vanish.
So, if American values occasionally sink to zero (all the senseless wars waged by the super-rich), Russian values dive even lower. Western democracies allow correction. Russia punishes it.
Why the Ukrainian war is our war
I am not denying that this war is complex. It is a product of international capital constellations. And, of course, it is a proxy war.
But Ukraine doesn’t only fight for borders—it fights for values. Ukrainians want dignity, justice, and choice. Russia wants obedience, brutality, and silence.
Every Russian loss weakens authoritarianism. Every Ukrainian gain defends freedom. If Russia wins, its model spreads—from Syria to Serbia to the edges of Europe.
On the contrary, if Ukraine wins, the world sees that dictatorship can be defeated. That freedom is not futile. That truth still matters.
Therefore, supporting Ukraine isn’t charity. It’s survival.
Decay is not culture—It’s a warning
Russian values don’t inspire—they infect. They eat away at dignity, they reward cruelty, they punish honesty. They replace civilization with fear.
No society should want this, no leader should imitate it. No future should tolerate it.
We reject Russian values not because we hate Russia—but because we love freedom. And those values threaten to erase it.
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