Tag: arrest

Ivan Pavlov: Thanks!

Russian human rights lawyer outside the Basmanny District Court in Moscow yesterday. Photo courtesy of his Telegram channel

Dear friends, colleagues, and allies!

This is Ivan Pavlov.

Yesterday was not an easy day for me, my family and the team. At 6 a.m., my friend Igor Dorfman had his door broken down. His apartment was searched for eight hours, and he was interrogated by the FSB. The Team 29 office was searched until nightfall.

But despite the fact that I have been restricted in my access to all means of communication, I am still with you.

My Facebook page has been temporarily blocked for security reasons. My Telegram channel will be run by my team. And this message has been written by Yevgeny Smirnov, who spent the whole day alongside me.

The team’s media resources will continue to function, publishing the latest news and features, because openness to the press and freedom of information have always been a priority for us. This, by the way, has always irritated our opponents a great deal.

The attack on me and my team is, of course, revenge for our work, for our principled stance, for our involvement in high-profile criminal cases run by the Russian FSB’s investigative department. And, of course, revenge for defending the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by Alexei Navalny, in court. But we are not going to stop. We will keep on working and fighting. Let’s not fall to the ground before shots are fired.

Especially since my team and I felt extraordinarily strong support from journalists, human rights defenders and the public on this day. And, most importantly, from our colleagues in the legal community, who came to the rescue without unnecessary formalities.

I am grateful for this difficult day because I learned how many people support me and Team 29. This inspires an optimism that cannot be diminished by interrogations, searches and court hearings.

Thanks!
Ivan Pavlov
(via Yevgeny Smirnov)

Source: weekly Team 29 emailing. Translated by the Russian Reader

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Russia targets lawyer over media comments on treason case
Daria Litvinova
Associated Press
April 30, 2021

Russian authorities have launched a criminal probe against a lawyer representing a former Russian journalist accused of treason and the team of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, accusing him of disclosing information related to a police investigation.

St. Petersburg-based lawyer Ivan Pavlov told reporters Friday he was formally charged with the criminal offense, punishable by a fine, community service or detention of up to three months, after his Moscow hotel room was raided on Friday morning and he was summoned to Russia’s Investigative Committee for interrogation.

Pavlov appeared in court later Friday and was ordered not to contact witnesses in the case or to use the Internet or a cellphone.

Pavlov’s colleague, Yevgeny Smirnov, had reported that the lawyer was detained. But Pavlov’s spokesperson, Yelizaveta Alexandrova-Zorina, later clarified to the Associated Press that Pavlov formally wasn’t arrested even though he was de-facto detained in his hotel room during the search.

The Team 29 association of lawyers that Pavlov heads said on social media that its office in St. Petersburg, the apartments of one of its employees and of Pavlov’s wife, and Pavlov’s house in the countryside were also raided Friday.

Opposition supporters, independent journalists and human rights activists have been facing increasing government pressure in Russia. Raids targeting Pavlov and his team elicited outrage in the Russian legal and human rights community, with prominent lawyers and legal aid groups calling on authorities to stop “using the law as a tool of pressure on lawyers.”

Pavlov said the accusations against him were connected to his defense of Ivan Safronov, a former Russian journalist charged with treason in a case that has been widely seen as retribution for his journalistic work. He said he was targeted because he shared information about the case with the media.

“The investigators maintain that I committed a crime when I told you, reporters, that your colleague is being unlawfully held in Lefortovo (pre-trial detention center) on absurd accusations,” the lawyer said.

Safronov, who wrote about military and security issues for a decade before becoming an adviser to Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin, was detained last year and accused of passing military secrets to Czech intelligence. Many journalists questioned the charges, and his former newspaper rejected them as “absurd.”

Safronov’s former colleagues alleged that authorities may have sought revenge for his reporting that exposed Russian military incidents and opaque arms trade deals. Safronov has remained in pre-trial detention since July.

Pavlov had been due to appear in a Moscow court on Friday at a hearing about extending Safronov’s pre-trial detention. The lawyer said police unlawfully seized “almost the entire dossier” of documents related to the case during the hotel raid, including those subject to attorney-client privilege.

According to his colleague Smirnov, Pavlov frequently received threats from investigators at Russia’s Security Service, or FSB, with an investigator involved in the case against the former journalist allegedly saying to the lawyer, “We’re going to do everything to put you behind bars.”

Pavlov maintained his innocence and said he considered the case against him “revenge” for his work on cases investigated by the FSB.

Smirnov told the AP that persecution of Pavlov sends a signal to all lawyers: “Don’t even think about working effectively on criminal cases. Don’t even think about speaking out. Don’t even think about defending people.”

In August, Russian media reported the FSB had lodged a complaint against Pavlov over his refusal to sign a non-disclosure statement in Safronov’s case. Pavlov said he had signed a statement not to disclose state secrets in connection with the case, but no one had asked him to sign a broader non-disclosure statement.

The case against Pavlov was opened shortly after he started representing the [Anti-Corruption Foundation], founded by President Vladimir Putin’s longtime foe, opposition leader Navalny.

This month, the Moscow prosecutor’s office petitioned the Moscow City Court to outlaw Navalny’s foundation and his network of regional offices as extremist groups. The case, expected to be heard May 17, is part of a sweeping crackdown on Navalny, his allies and his political infrastructure.

On Friday, the Rosfinmonitoring agency, which analyzes financial transactions to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, added “Public Movement of Navalny’s Headquarters” to its list of organizations involved in extremist activities or terrorism.

However, Navalny’s top strategist Leonid Volkov said no such organization exists. Rosfinmonitoring can freeze access to bank accounts and it is not clear how Friday’s move would affect Navalny’s foundation or other operations.

Navalny is currently serving time in a penal colony outside Moscow. He was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a Soviet nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. Russian officials have rejected the accusations. European labs have confirmed he was poisoned.

And Then They Came for the Gastroenterologists

Dr. Alexey Golovenko on April 20, 2021. Photo: Daria Neschekina

Security forces detain gastroenterologist Alexey Golovenko in the capital
Novaya Gazeta
April 25, 2021

Law enforcement officers have detained Moscow gastroenterologist Alexey Golovenko. This was reported on Facebook by Mikhail Genin, the head of the project Find Your Doctor!

Golovenko has been taken to the police department in the Koptevo district. The exact reason for the doctor’s arrest is unknown: Genin says it may be connected with the fact that Golovenko gave an interview to the BBC on April 21.

Alexey Golovenko is a well-known Moscow gastroenterologist and popularizer of scientific medicine. In 2019, he was detained at a rally for fair elections to the Moscow City Duma. The doctor has also collaborated with Meduza* on a guide to intestinal health problems.

UPDATE, 6:28 p.m. Meduza reports that Dr. Golovenko has been left to stay overnight in the police department. His court hearing will be held on April 26. Genin has clarified that the doctor has been charged with violating Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code (violating the established procedure for organizing or holding a rally).

* Meduza has been entered by the Russian Federal Justice Ministry in the register of mass media functioning as foreign agents.

Translated by the Russian Reader

UPDATE, 27 April 2021. Yesterday, Dr. Golovenko reported on his Facebook page that the court dismissed the charges against him for lack of evidence. || TRR

Yefim Khazanov: One Repost Too Many?


Yefim Khazanov. Photo: Roman Yarovitsyn/Kommersant

Yefim Khazanov, Academician of Russian Academy of Sciences, Detained in Nizhny Novgorod
Roman Ryskal
Kommersant
April 21, 2021

Yefim Khazanov, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and laureate of the State Prize in Science and Technology was detained in Nizhny Novgorod on Tuesday, April 20. Presumably, the reason was his reposts of information about Alexei Navalny on Facebook.

As Mr. Khazanov reported to Kommersant, he was taken to the police department in the city’s Kanavinsky district. “I was detained in the afternoon at work and brought to the police station. They said that I had written [something] about Navalny on Facebook, but I believe that I did not write [anything],” the scientist said. He added that, for the time being, he was in the lobby of the station, and the police officers had not gone through any procedures with him. Lawyer Mikhail Lipkin had gone to the department to represent the physicist.

Mr. Khazanov’s page on the social network contains reposts of information from Alexei Navalny from the [penal] colony, an appeal by human rights defenders to Vladimir Putin about the convicted person’s [sic] condition, as well as posts by Leonid Volkov about the state of health of the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK, entered in the register of foreign agents). The police have not yet commented on Khazanov’s detention.

Yefim Khazanov is a Russian experimental physicist who specializes in creating laser systems. In 2008, he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Department of Physical Sciences. In 2012, he was awarded the Russian Federation Government Prize for his work creating a petawatt laser system. In 2018, he was awarded the Russian Federation State Prize for establishing the basic foundations of and devising instrumental solutions to the problem of registering gravitational waves.

Thanks to EZ and others for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

The Arrest and Framing of Mikola Dziadok

Tatsiana Chulitskaya
Facebook
November 12, 2020

My good friend and former student, the very honest person and true patriot Mikola Dziadok has been detained and beaten in Belarus. The video shows that he was severely beaten. There is no point in commenting on the fact that bundles of money were found in Mikola’s flat. Anyone who knows him at all understands what nonsense this is. And I’m even afraid to imagine what these inhumans did to make Mikola talk about “love for the Motherland” in such interiors. We can only hope that we will see Mikola released very soon.🤍❤️🤍

Belarusian Interior Ministry, “A Leader of the Country’s Anarchist Movement Has Been Detained”

Belarus on the Brain
Telegram
November 12, 2020

Reports of Blogger Mikola Dziadok’s Arrest Confirmed

Dziadok ran the increasingly popular Telegram channel Mikola, where he published political analyses of the situation in Belarus and gave his opinion on what should be done to security victory for the peaceful revolution. Now his channel has obviously been hacked and is in the hands of the security forces.

The purge of the Belarusian political blogosphere began in the summer with the arrest of bloggers Sergei Tikhanovsky (A Country for Living), Vladimir Tsyganovich (MozgON), Igor Losik (Belarus on the Brain), Brest blogger Alexander Kabanov, and others.

Dziadok was one of the few Belarusian political bloggers who did not leave the country. Now he is suspect of violating Article 342* of the criminal code of the Republic of Belarus.

* “The organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them, is punishable by a fine, or arrest, or restriction of liberty for up to three years, or imprisonment for the same term.”

________________

Thanks to Tatsiana Chulitskaya for permission to translate and post her message here, and to Sasha Razor for the heads-up and introductions. As soon as I have information about how you can show your support to Mikola  Dziadok, I will publish it here. Translated by the Russian Reader

Mikola Dziadok in happier times. Courtesy of his Facebook page

Russia’s Most Dangerous Shaman

shamanAlexander Gabyshev. Photo by Andrei Zatirko. Courtesy of RFE/RL

Riot Police Storm House of Alexander Gabyshev, Yakut Shaman Who Promised to Exorcise Putin
Radio Svoboda
May 12, 2020

Riot police have detained Alexander Gabyshev, the Yakut shaman who last year promised to exorcise Russian President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin, and taken him to a mental hospital, according to MBKh Media, citing Alexei Pryanishnikov, the coordinator of Pravozashchita Otkrytki [Open Russia’s human rights program].

According to the human rights activist, at least twenty special forces officers had stormed the shaman’s house in Yakutsk. The reason for his arrest is unknown. Earlier in the day, Gabyshev had been visited several times by people who presented themselves as medical professionals, and asked to test him for the coronavirus. Two of Gabyshev’s supporters were detained along with him for violating self-isolation rules.

Gabyshev gained notoriety in the spring of 2019, when he set off on foot to Moscow to perform an exorcism ritual to force Russian President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin.

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A Shaman for Putin: What Siberians Are Telling Gabyshev on His Way to Moscow, Radio Svoboda, September 12, 2019. Yakut shaman Alexander Gabyshev believes that Vladimir Putin is the “spawn of dark forces,” so he set off on foot to Moscow to “exorcise” him. The shaman began the journey alone, but soon followers began to join him. In Chita, he spoke to a large rally. Buryatia was the next region on Gabyshev’s journey: mass protests started in Ulan-Ude after his supporters were arrested. Gabyshev planned to take two years to get to Moscow so he could unhurriedly converse with the people along the way. The shaman and his followers moved along the roads, covering an average of twenty kilometers a day, stopping for the night in tents, sometimes at roadside motels. Local residents and passing people went to talk to Gabyshev, taking pictures, and helping with food and money.

___________________________________

On September 19 of last year, Gabyshev was detained at the border between Buryatia and Irkutsk Region during an operation involving special forces. He was identified as a suspect in a criminal investigation into alleged instances of “incitement to extremism” and released on his own recognizance. A psychological and psychiatric examination ordered by police investigators found that Gabyshev was mentally incompetent.

Gabyshev subsequently tried to resume his campaign, promising to make another march on Moscow in June.

The criminal case against Gabyshev was suspended for the duration of the epidemic. International human rights organization Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.

“‘What sounds like a tale from Russian folklore has become, in today’s Russia, just another act of brutal suppression of human rights,” the organization noted.

Translated by the Russian Reader

BBC Russian Service, From Yakutia to Moscow: A Shaman’s Journey Against Putin, September 24, 2019

A Death Sentence for Yuri Dmitriev?

dmitriev
Yuri Dmitriev. Archive photo courtesy of 7X7

Karelian Supreme Court Refuses to Release Historian Yuri Dmitriev from Remand Prison Where Coronavirus Has Been Discovered
Denis Strelkov and Sergei Markelov
7X7
May 7, 2020

The Supreme Court of Karelia has turned down an appeal by the defense to not extend local historian and head of the Karelian branch of Memorial Yuri Dmitriev’s arrest in police custody, 7X7 has been informed by Dmitriev’s lawyer Viktor Anunfriev.

The defense had asked the court to change the pretrial restraints imposed on the 64-year-old Dmitriev because the local historian was at risk for the coronavirus infection since a couple of months ago he had suffered a severe cold. On April 30, Artur Parfenchikov, head of the Republic of Karelia, wrote on his social media page that two prisoners in Petrozavodsk Remand Prison No. 1 had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

More than 150 people, including famous actors and musicians, scientists and teachers, had signed an open letter expressing concern for the health and well-being of Dmitriev, who in the late 1990s uncovered at Sandarmokh and Krasny Bor the mass graves of Soviet citizens executed during the Great Terror of the 1930s.

In April 2018, the Petrozavodsk City Court acquitted Dmitriev on charges of producing child pornography. The charges were made after nude photos of his foster daughter were found during a police search of his house. Dmitriev claimed that he had taken the snapshots at the request of social and health services to keep track of the girl’s health. Expert witnesses at the trial testified that they did not consider the pictures pornographic. Two months later, the acquittal was overturned by the Karelian Supreme Court, and Dmitriev was charged, in addition to making the pictures, with sexual assault.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Jesus and His Dog

Muscovite Detained While Walking Dog, Police Leave Dog on Street Alone
Mediazona
April 4, 2020

Eyewitness Snezhana Mayskaya has told Mediazona that a young man was detained by police while walking a dog at Patriarch Ponds in downtown Moscow. Police officers put the man in a police van and drove away, leaving the dog on the street, Mayskaya added.

“They tried to call the dog. But it didn’t go up to them—it got scared and ran away. In the end, the young man was driven away, while the dog remained here,” she said.

 

Smartphone video of the incident, shot by Snezhana Mayskaya, as posted on @patriarshi

The Twitter account @patriashi claims the detained man’s wife retrieved the dog.

OVD Info reports that the detained man was delivered to the Presna District police precinct. “The police still refuse to specify what they are charging the detainee with,” it writes. According to OVD Info, the police said that Patriarch Ponds were closed when they detained the man.

The detained man, Jesus Vorobyov, told TV Rain that he was walking the dog within one hundred meters of his home when they were stopped by police. “They didn’t let me take the dog home or contact my wife, and they put me in their van. The dog was running around and barking,” he said. Vorobyov added that, during the arrest, police “twisted” his arm, while he was threatened at the precinct with fifteen days in jail.

A stay at home order has been in effect in Moscow since March 30 due to the coronavirus. People may now leave their homes only to walk their dogs, shop for groceries, seek medical attention, and go to work.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Five Time’s the Charm

yashinIlya Yashin is not the only unregistered candidate for the Moscow City Duma against whom the tactic of consecutive arrests has been used. Photo by Yevgeny Razumny. Courtesy of Vedomosti

Yashin Breaks Record for Numbers of Arrests: Moscow Test Drives New Method of Combating Activists
Anastasia Kornya
Vedomosti
August 30, 2019

On Thursday, Ilya Yashin, head of the Krasnoselsky Municipal District Council in Moscow, was sentenced to his fifth consecutive jail sentence of ten days for an administrative violation. The Tverskaya District Court found him guilty of calling on the public to attend an August 3 “unauthorized” protest rally in support of the independent candidates barred from running in the September 8 elections to the Moscow City Duma.

Yashin has been in police custody since July 29. He has been detained every time he left the special detention center after serving his latest sentence. Police have taken him to court, where he has faced fresh charges of holding an “unauthorized” protest or calling on the public to attend one and then been sentenced to jail again. The municipal district councilman has thus been in detention almost continuously for thirty-two days, while the total time he has spent in jail this summer is forty-one days. This considerably exceeds the maximum allowable sentence of thirty days, as stipulated by the Criminal Procedures Code.

Yashin is scheduled to be released on September 7, but there is no guarantee he will not go to jail again.

Yashin’s lawyer Vadim Prokhorov told the court that the prosecution of the councilman was tantamount to a political reprisal. Formally, he noted, one arrest can follow another without violating the law. The problem was that the courts could make one wrongful ruling after another. Prokhorov saw no point in amending the laws, which are quite logical on this point.

“It would be like treating cancer with aspirin,” he said. “We have to change the whole judicial system.”

Ilya Yashin is not the only unregistered candidate for the Moscow City Duma against whom the tactic of consecutive arrests has been used. Former MP Dmitry Gudkov was sentenced to thirty days in jail on July 30, but several days before his scheduled release he was sentenced to another ten days in jail for calling on people to attend the July 27 protest rally. Yulia Galyamina has been convicted of three administrative offenses and sentenced to ten days in jail twice and fifteen days once; she is still in police custody. Konstantin Yankauskas has been arrested and sentenced to seven, ten, and nine days in jail, respectively; like Yashin, he was detained by police after leaving the special detention center. Oleg Stepanov has been sentenced consecutively to eight and fifteen days in jail; Ivan Zhdanov, to ten and fifteen days in jail.

The authorities are unwilling to charge the protest leaders with felonies and remand them in custody, but they clearly do not want to see them at large, said Alexei Glukhov, head of the project Defense of Protest. He noted that the current tactic of arresting opposition leaders multiple times is something novel: in the entire history of the protest movement [sic], no one had ever been arrested more than two times in a row.

Glukhov warned that the tactic was quite dangerous. Courtesy of the Russian Supreme Court, which in the recent past has ruled that violating the deadline for filing charges (legally, the authorities have two days to do this) did not preclude filing charges later, any person who attends a protest rally has the sword of Damocles hanging over their head for a year after the rally.  The authorities can arrest them at any time, for example, by claiming they had only just established their identities.

Glukhov pointed out that, in its review of the government’s draft project for a new Criminal Procedures Code, the Presidential Council on Human Rights had drawn attention to the fact that the one-year statute of limitations in such cases was not justified and could be misused.

Translated by the Russian Reader

“What Is This, the Gestapo?” University Student Yegor Zhukov Charged with Rioting in Moscow

Higher School of Economics Student Yegor Zhukov Arrested in Riot Investigation
Andrei Karev
Novaya Gazeta
August 2, 2019

Moscow’s Presna District Court has remanded in custody yet another person charged in the riot investigation launched after the July 27 protest rally in Moscow: 21-year-old Yegor Zhukov, a candidate for the Moscow City Duma, video blogger, and student at the Higher School of Economics.

content_______2Yegor Zhukov in court. Photo by Vlad Dokshin. Courtesy of Novaya Gazeta

Judge Alexander Avdotyina granted a motion made by the case investigator and remanded Zhukov in custody until September 27.

The hearing began with a motion from Zhukov’s defense lawyer, Daniil Berman. He asked the court to call a recess and give his client a bottle of water.

“He has not had a drop of water since two in the morning and has not slept since yesterday,” Berman claimed.

The judge, however, refused to uphold the motion, explaining that giving Zhukov a bottle of water was against the rules.

“What is this, the Gestapo?” Zhukov’s outraged mother wondered aloud.

Her son has been charged with involvement in rioting, punishable under Article 212.2 of the Russian Criminal Code. Zhukov has completely denied his guilt and refused to give testimony to investigators. According to the case investigator, if Zhukov were at large, he could hinder the investigation, present a flight risk, and pressure witnesses.

He argued that Zhukov’s guilt was borne out by evidence gathered during the investigation.

“Zhukov could destroy evidence in the case and communicate information learned during the investigation to other suspects,” explained the investigator from the Russian Investigative Committee.

The prosecutor seconded the investigator’s arguments.

Zhukov asked the court to impose pretrial restrictions that did not involve imprisoning him.

content_______3Yegor Zhukov in court. Photo by Vlad Dokshin. Courtesy of Novaya Gazeta

Berman argued there were no grounds for remanding Zhukov in custody. There had been no criminal wrongdoing on Zhukov’s part, and investigators had not presented any specific evidence. Berman motioned the court not to impose pretrial restrictions that would involve isolating his client from society, asking it instead to place Zhukov under house arrest or release him on bail or on his own recognizance.

“There have been lies at each stage of the criminal investigation. It seems as if the case file has been hastily thrown together: it is a collection of commonplaces. What are the charges? What exactly did my client do? The case investigators should at least pretend to be upholding the law. It is outrageous they asked the court to uphold this motion. Why should a student and Muscovite be remanded in custody?” Berman exclaimed.

He added that Zhukov’s parents were willing to post one million rubles [$15,320] in bail.

Earlier, it transpired Valeria Kasamara, vice-rector at the Higher School of Economics and candidate for the Moscow City Duma in Borough No. 45, had agreed to stand surety for Zhukov.

“I request Yegor Zhukov not be remanded in custody. He is my student. He has always been distinguished by his curiosity and high academic performance. I know him personally and can vouch for his good character,” reads the document, posted on Telegram by Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora International Human Rights Group.

Higher School of Economics students, alumni, and faculty have published an open letter demanding the university’s administrators officially voice their support for Zhukov. According to the letter’s authors, the HSE administration should personally make official statements supporting Zhukov, stand surety for him in court, and appeal to all public authorities to explain the grounds for the criminal charges against him.

“The charges against Yegor are charges against the entire university and each member of the university community. The university teaches us to think critically, speak freely, and ask questions. The Higher School of Economics does not have the moral right to turn its back when a member of its community faces three to eight years in prison for speaking freely and asking the right questions,” it says in the letter.

The Investigative Committee has consolidated separate charges of rioting (punishable under Article 212 of the Russian Criminal Code) and violence against police officers (punishable under Article 318 of the Russian Criminal Code) into a single criminal investigation of the “unauthorized” protest rally in Moscow on July 27. According to Chikov, 84 investigators have been assigned to the case.

Earlier on Friday, the court remanded Alexei Minyaylo, Samariddin Radzhabov, Ivan Podkopayev, and Kirill Zhukov in custody. Yevgeny Kovalenko had already been remanded in custody as part of the same investigation.

Thanks to Dmitry Kalugin for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

The Syrian Breakthrough

kuzminNikolai Kuzmin during his solo picket outside the exhibition The Syrian Breakthrough, in Pskov. His placard reads, “Spend budget money on our own schools and hospitals, not on someone else’s war.” Photo by Lyudmila Savitskaya. Courtesy of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Yabloko Activist Detained in Pskov at “Syrian Breakthrough” Exhibition
Lyudmila Savitskaya
Radio Svoboda
April 26, 2019

In Pskov, police have detained local Yabloko Party activist Nikolai Kuzmin, who held a solo picket outside an exhibition of military equipment entitled The Syrian Breakthrough. Kuzmin stood behind servicemen queued at the city’s train station to see the exhibition.

He held a placard that read, “Spend budget money on our own schools and hospitals, not on someone else’s war.”

Commenting on his actions, Kuzmin claimed over 25,000 schools had been closed in Russia over the past twenty years. The activist argued that, outside Moscow and Petersburg, it was nearly impossible to get an ambulance, and half of the men in Pskov Region did not live to retirement age.

“As in a dystopia, however, instead of being productive and saving the lives of Russians, we have raised war into a cult that we worship. Lacking reasons to feel proud, we are administered daily injections of patriotism. But patriotism does not mean fighting wars in someone else’s countries. It means building things in your own country and having a critical attitude toward the mania for military victory,” Kuzmin added.

Kuzmin’s picket lasted around ten minutes. During this time, members of the pro-regime organization Team 2018 managed to have their picture taken with him. Kuzmin was then surrounded by military police who asked him to leave. Kuzmin responded by asking them to identify themselves [as required by Russian laws regulating the police] and explain their grounds for wanting to remove him from a public event.

The military policemen were unable to fulfill Kuzmin’s request, so Sergei Surin, head of the Interior Ministry Directorate for Pskov [i.e., the local police chief] came to their aid. He personally detained Kuzmin while repeatedly refusing to explain the grounds for the arrest to Kuzmin and comment on it to reporters who were present.

Lev Schlosberg, leader of the Yabloko Party in Pskov, demanded Kuzmin’s immediate release and the removal from Pskov of The Syrian Breakthrough, which he dubbed a “propaganda scrap heap.”

“Russia must cease military operations in Syria, while government funds should be spent on peaceful goals that further the interests of Russia’s citizens,” Schlosberg said.

In February 2019, the Russian Defense Ministry launched a train containing weapons seized, it claimed, by Russian servicemen during combat in Syria. The train departed Moscow on an itinerary of sixty cities and towns. When it reaches Vladivostok, the train will head back to Moscow. It is scheduled to arrive there on the eve of Victory Day, May 9.

Thanks to Nikolai Boyarshinov for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader