Putin's Russia becomes more and more like Stalin's concentration camp

Here are some facts.

Putin has instructed the security services to "fight traitors, spies and saboteurs". This includes all undesirables.

The report of the Council of Federalists says that Russians who left the country after the outbreak of war become spies for the CIA, MI6 and Main Directorate Intelligence.

Deputies offer their vision of how to limit the departure of Russians abroad: to ban remote work, to increase taxes.

The number of places for prisoners sentenced to forced labour is planned to be doubled - up to 80,000. Now there are 440,000 prisoners in Russia. Every fifth will be able to work for the benefit of the regime.

What are the similarities with the Stalinist era?

Stalin's repressions took place on social grounds - entire segments of the population and nations were preventively exterminated. Putin's machine targets the middle class - the most educated, wealthy and dangerous for the regime.

Putin is just beginning to master the work of prisoners. Last year, the Federal Penitentiary Service proposed to resume the practice of labour camps to replace migrants with prisoners. The initiative was supported by the Kremlin. Although even without these formalities, the Federal Penitentiary Service is the largest "employer" in Russia with multi-billion turnover and huge corruption. This year some prisoners were even sent to the armoured plants of the Ural to work in three shifts.

Prisoners are an important asset of the Kremlin's war machine. Here Putin has even surpassed Stalin. The Kremlin allowed Prigozhin to pull out more than 40,000 convicts from prisons and throw them to the front. As in Stalin's time, Russian prisons are now becoming a transit point on the way of prisoners to labour camps or PMCs, which are being created in increasing numbers.

But Stalin's example shows that maniacal terror grows rapidly in scale over time. If Putin stays in power, there will be purges in the army, repressions against oligarchs, a modern version of dekulakization.

About the author. Orest Sohar, journalist, editor-in-chief of Obozrevatel.