CW: domestic violence

You're Oleg - you're 23, you went to medical university in Kazan' and after an encouragement from some of your coursemates, during the New Year's holidays you finally came out to your family back in Neftekamsk.

After a long and painful row they disavowed you and your cousin even called the uni's admin team saying that you were sharing 'homosexual propaganda' on the uni's 'V Kontakte' (Russian 'Facebook') page so you get thrown out of the uni.

On 23rd of January you went out to the streets of Kazan to protest Putin, got kicked in the head by the police, are now facing 5 years in prison, the family won't visit you, naturally.

You're Sanzhima - you're 62 year old Buryat, you used to vote for Putin because your pension was increasing and generally you felt left at peace, in your corner of the world near the town of Tsakir, Siberia.

That was until last April when your wooden shack was burnt to the ground because a pal of Putin found that there are some minerals on the land around you and wants to build a mine there.

You're Damira - 31, a mother of one, living on the outskirts of St Petersburg, beaten to pulp by your alcoholic husband on the regs. You finally find the strength to go to the police, only to be laughed at as laws against domestic violence were recently scrapped by the Kremlin.

Any of these people go online today and the message from the Western left welcoming them is 'tHe GuaRDiAn tOld mE NAValNy sAid A mEAn tHinG iN a ViDEO 8 yeARs AgO aND he'S n0t AOC sO aLL pe0plE PRoTeStinG aRE cIA pUppetS.'

It's genuinely all I see and it's so embarrassing, if not really painful.