Tag: Liya Milushkina

Opposition Activist Couple in Pskov Gets 22 Years in Prison for “Drug Dealing”

Liya and Artyom Milushkin in 2019. Courtesy of Open Russia

In January 2019, I posted a brief report about a Pskov couple, Liya and Artyom Milushkin, opposition political activists who had been charged with drug dealing. In fact, the local police had threatened that they would plant drugs on the couple and frame them after they attempted to stage a protest on Putin’s birthday. The cops made good on their threat.

Today, August 12, 2021, the court sentenced Artyom to 11 years in a maximum-security prison, and Liya to 10 years and 6 months in a penal colony. Liya will begin serving her sentence only after their children turn fourteen.

During the reading of the verdict, Artyom had a nervous breakdown and smashed the bench in his cage in the courtroom.

Source: “Woman, Prison, Society” Facebook page

Frame-Up in Pskov: Liya and Artyom Milushkin Punished by Police for Political Activism

open russia-milushkinsLiya and Artyom Milushkin. Photo courtesy of Open Russia

Team Open Russia
Facebook
January 17, 2019

Last night, police investigators in Pskov detained Liya Milushkina, Open Russia’s coordinator for Pskov, and her husband, Artyom Milushkin, an activist with another political movement.

The young couple, parents of two small children, have been charged with a very serious crime: wholesale drug dealing.

Artyom and Liya are well known in Pskov as perennial organizers and participants of political protests. Liya was also involved in animal rights protection.

We know that when the Milushkins were brutally detained before a protest on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, police officers threatened to plant narcotics on them.

During the incident, the Milushkins were pulled over and dragged from their car as their children watched.

This background and the ways of the Russian police have forced us to take this case extremely seriously.

Their interrogations began at 12:00 p.m. Lawyers from Open Russia Human Rights were present.

Translated by the Russian Reader