{"id":21074,"date":"2025-11-21T13:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=21074"},"modified":"2025-11-29T02:34:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:34:52","slug":"die-verschwundene-tochter-und-das-russische-propaganda-maerchen-ueber-eine-befreiung-die-in-wahrheit-andere-vollbrachten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/die-verschwundene-tochter-und-das-russische-propaganda-maerchen-ueber-eine-befreiung-die-in-wahrheit-andere-vollbrachten\/","title":{"rendered":"The Missing Daughter \u2013 and the Russian Propaganda Fairy Tale about a \u201cRescue\u201d that in Reality Others Carried Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

It rarely begins with a chain at the gate or an armed guard. It usually begins with a promise. An enticing offer, an embellished photo, the illusion of a new beginning. For Dashima Otschirnimaewa, a young woman from a Buryat family that had shorn sheep for generations, it was an advertisement for modeling jobs in Thailand. High pay, major agencies, a comfortable hotel \u2013 the dream of a quick rise. But the path did not lead to photo shoots in Bangkok, but into a place where human rights have meant nothing for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dashima<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dashima was never someone who stayed in one place. Her father, Tumen Otschirnimaew, had also left his origins behind and had become a medic in a special unit of the G.R.U. His daughter initially took a sober path, studied at the Perm Institute of Corrections, wrote her thesis on the arms trade in Armenia and Kazakhstan, and ultimately ended up as a guard in a women\u2019s penal colony. The work there disillusioned her quickly. She quit, lost a lawsuit over repayment of her training costs, and looked for a way out \u2013 first in Turkey, then in the world of online marketing promises, where one could supposedly get rich using three sentences on the sofa. It did not last long. And at some point, in spring 2025, she discovered that modeling offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who expected her in Thailand anticipated a professional applicant. It took only minutes for them to notice that the information in her application was not correct. The supposed employer demanded money for the flight, kept her passport, and imposed additional fees. Whether Dashima actually came from Turkey or \u2013 as a Russian consular officer in Guangzhou later claimed \u2013 had been abducted from Laos remains unclear. What is certain is that shortly afterward she ended up in that buffer zone between Thailand and Myanmar, where state power exists only theoretically and real control lies with militias, syndicates, and armed groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There, multi-story concrete buildings stand beside improvised shelters. In one building complex there is a call center, a few steps away a casino, next to it women\u2019s quarters, server rooms, small restaurants and bars. A shadow city operated by groups accountable to no one. The most notorious operator of this region is a man from Macau, known by his nickname \u201cBroken Tooth\u201d (Wan Kuok-koi). After a long prison sentence in China, he built a kind of mini-city in Myanmar, where around 40,000 people work \u2013 many voluntarily, most involuntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cBroken Tooth\u201d (Wan Kuok-koi)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A part of this city belongs to a branch of the Karen, an Indigenous people who have resisted the Myanmar military for decades. Their women, mostly from the Padaung people, wear heavy neck rings, which earned them the folkloric name \u201cgiraffe women\u201d around the world. But their role is far less romantic: some Karen commanders profit from renting out land, collecting protection money and supporting the structures of the scam centers. They provide guards, organize transport and control areas in which the state has no authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dashima worked there as part of a team that focused on Russian-speaking victims. She invented life stories, told of supposed emergencies, offered fake investments, or described violence inflicted by an imaginary husband. With each call, men from Russia, the Baltic states, or Central Asia were to be drawn into a net of lies. Ten percent of the income was supposed to go to the fraudsters themselves \u2013 a goal that few achieved. Those who failed were punished. Some were shaved bald, others isolated for days. This is how Dashima ended up in one of the rooms where misconduct is sanctioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dashima<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Through a secretly used phone, she managed to reach her father. He was deployed in Ukraine at the time. Dashima begged him to get her out, told him about money demands, threats, and that she was going to be resold. This call set the diplomatic machinery in motion. The Russian Foreign Ministry was informed, embassies and consulates received instructions, but their ability to act was limited. Myanmar has for years been in a state where the central government controls only parts of the country. Russia had no leverage in the region. The real power lay with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Russian ambassador in Thailand, Yevgeny Tomichin (2nd from right), aboard a Russian frigate. On the right, Dashima\u2019s father, Tumen Otschirnimaew<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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China has long been waging a harsh campaign against the fraud industry because countless Chinese are tortured or extorted in these centers. A semi-official Chinese operational structure exists along the border, negotiating with militias, applying pressure, transferring money, or clearing buildings. Through this connection, a Karen commander was reached, who in turn organized the release of four Russian women \u2013 including Dashima. The role of Russian entities was limited to communication and formal assistance. Without the Chinese authorities and without the Karen, no one would have been freed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE TEACHING EXAMPLE: How Russia Replaces This Truth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The state narrative in Russia looked different. Media close to the Kremlin turned the case into a patriotic hero story. In this second version, Dashima is not taken out of a chaotic criminal complex \u2013 but out of the hands of dangerous enemies allegedly lurking everywhere for Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The article claims that Dashima Otschirnimaewa was freed by Russian and Myanmar authorities from an illegal call center in Myanmar and is returning home thanks to their help. This portrayal is, however, false because Russia had no operational access in the region, the rescue was in fact organized by Chinese services and a Karen commander, and neither a Ukrainian link nor any coordinated international police unit existed. The Russian embassy played no active role in the rescue but appeared only afterward, while the article pretends the liberation was a success of Russian state structures.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The first images distributed by Russian state media were taken at Bangkok airport. Dashima stands there between diplomats, politely arranged, the camera perfectly positioned. The video looks like the conclusion of a mission carried out deliberately and bravely. Not a word about the Karen militia that actually took her out of the center. Not a word about the Chinese officials who facilitated the handover. The images were not meant to explain what truly happened, but what Russia wants to stand for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n