In Russia, at the highest levels of government and society, violence against women is tolerated and even defended. According to Human Rights Watch, each year roughly 12,000 women there are killed, most often by husbands, lovers, and other men close to the victims. Police in Russia are often slow to respond to calls for help from women, or don’t respond at all—which means that the internet is often the place of last resort. And women who talk about their abuse, on television or the web, are punished with a startling amount of online abuse.