Russian opposition politician Yevgueni Roizman was arrested yesterday, in the latest punishing measure by Russian authorities against critics of the war in Ukraine. Roizman, a former mayor of the Ural city of Yekaterinburg, told reporters from his window that he was being detained "basically for one phrase, 'the invasion of Ukraine.'" When asked where he had said that, he replied, "I've said it everywhere and I'll say it now."
The Russian state news agency TASS quoted the security services to confirm that Roizman was being investigated for "discrediting the Russian military". This crime, newly introduced after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, carries prison sentences of up to five years. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" and citizens risk prosecution if they use the words "war" or "invasion."
Roizman is an outspoken supporter of jailed Alexei Navalny, and became one of the most prominent opposition figures in 2013 after being elected mayor of Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city. That victory took advantage of the discontent over the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency in 2012.
Popular and charismatic, Yevgueni Roizman was however controversial for an aggressive crackdown on drug users in the city. In 2018 he resigned after a political maneuver by regional legislators against him, according to him. Dimitri Gudkov, a former opposition member in the State Duma (like Roizman) and emigrated to Ukraine, wrote on Telegram that this arrest was "revenge for telling the truth about a war that has been going on for half a year now."
Roizman, and some other imprisoned politicians, such as Iliá Yashin or former Moscow councilor Alexei Gorinov – sentenced to seven years in prison – are the visible faces of the repression unleashed against critics of the war. But there are others. The Russian human rights organization OVD-Info counts at least 16,437 arrests related to anti-war protests between February 24 and August 17. This number includes, in addition to street arrests, 138 arrests for social media posts, 118 arrests for anti-war symbols and 62 for anti-war actions. The criminal cases affect 224 people and 22 of them are defended by lawyers from OVD-Info, which also points out that the authorities carry out “preventive” arrests using a facial recognition system.
Military censorship is also intense on the internet, notes the Roskomsvoboda observatory: some 7,000 websites and links have been blocked in the last six months: news agencies, television and radio networks, human rights organizations and even concerts and events.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, two employees of the Zaporiya nuclear power plant were arrested for providing information to the Ukrainian authorities. A third person was also arrested for violating plant access procedures and collaborating with the Ukrainian military, all according to the Russian National Guard.
In the same region of Zaporizhia, one of the heads of the administration installed by the Russians, Iván Sushkó, was assassinated yesterday with a bomb placed under his car. Sushkó was the municipal manager of the town of Myjailivka, about 60 kilometers from Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is located.
According to Vladimir Rogov, a member of the pro-Russian council of Zaporizhia, Sushkó went to take his adopted daughter to the nursery. "Luckily the girl survived and she was not seriously injured," Rogov said via Telegram.
Last Tuesday Igor Telegin, a high-ranking official in Kherson, was the victim of another car bomb, but he managed to survive, as did the head of this occupied region, Vladimir Saldo, in early August; his lieutenant, Vitaly Gura, was shot dead the next day.
These attacks seem to confirm that the activity of the Ukrainian resistance in the occupied territories of the south of the country is a fact.
