Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. have sparked a reckoning with systemic racism and discrimination around the world, from Australia's treatment of Aboriginal people to anti-Islamophobia and anti-colonial movements in Western Europe. 

Remarkably, Russia is a glaring exception to this wave of self-scrutiny. 

On television and online, there has been a near total absence of public conversation around endemic and pervasive discrimination against minorities. This silence is especially conspicuous among Russia’s most prominent political liberals — people who many in the West hope will one day replace Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime and who are no strangers to state oppression and police violence. They have responded to the Black Lives Matters protests in the United States with ridicule and rancor, a reflection of the unchecked racism pervasive within Russia’s chattering classes. 

Among Russia’s intelligentia, public figures have expressed disdain for the protests, concern over property damage, anger against Black people, and have seemed to welcome a harsh police crackdown. At best, a lot of liberal Russians have sounded like far-right American commentators who have attacked George Floyd’s character and accused the Black Lives Matter movement of hypocrisy, over-reaction, and insincerity. At worst, their op-eds and public posts have been overtly racist and have cheered-on police aggression.