Ex-photographer of Navalny’s headquarters* in Arkhangelsk is detained for comments about Victory Day
The regional Investigating Committee opened a case against the activist at the end of March. According to the department, the resident of Arkhangelsk posted "false information that the Soviet Union triggered World War II" in social networks before Victory Day (paragraph "c" of Part 2 and Part 4 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in 2021. The police searched him and exempted his property.
Ruslan Akhmetshin was heading to the city of Yerevan in Armenia for treatment at a sanatorium. He had been searched in the case of Alexei Navalny’s "extremist organizations".
On March 22, opposition politician Alexei Navalny was sentenced to nine years in a high-security prison. He was accused of fraud and contempt of a court.
After that, security forces came to Navalny's supporters with searches and seizures because of cases on extremism. In Arkhangelsk, law enforcement officers searched SOTA’s journalists Darya Poryadina and Alexander Peskov, activist Ilya Lashukov, ex-coordinator of local Navalny's headquarters* Elizaveta Bychkova, and social activist Olga Shkolina, who supports political prisoners. Bychkova and Shkolina’s status has already been changed from witnesses to suspects.