A Russian court on Friday sentenced a leading opposition figure to a year in prison, the latest move in the Kremlin’s multi-pronged crackdown on opposition activists, independent media and human rights groups.
Andrei Pivovarov, the former head of the Open Russia group, was sentenced to four years in prison by a court in the southern city of Krasnodar. Pivovarov was charged with “running an undesirable organization”, a criminal offense under a 2015 law. He has maintained his innocence and has insisted the charges against him were brought over his plans to run for parliament in September 2021.
Pivovarov’s imprisonment and trial came as part of a broad effort by President Vladimir Putin’s government to quell any dissent in Russia. It began with the arrest and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in January 2021. Since then, scores of opposition activists have been prosecuted and pressured by the authorities. Many have left Russia, while others have been imprisoned.
The crackdown intensified after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, and remaining Kremlin critics faced charges for publicly denouncing the war. Earlier this week, a Moscow court ordered the preventive detention of another leading opposition figure, Ilya Yashin, pending investigation and trial on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military. Yashin was one of the few prominent opposition politicians who has not left Russia.
Pivovarov was removed from a Warsaw-bound plane at St. Petersburg airport just before takeoff in May 2021. He was flown to the southern city of Krasnodar, where he was accused of supporting a local candidate on behalf of an “undesirable” organization. “. The charges were based on his social media posts supporting independent candidates in the Krasnodar municipal elections.
Pivovarov denied the charges, noting that the criminal case against him was opened two days after the Open Russia closed. The group was disbanded to protect members from prosecution after it was designated an “undesirable” organization.
Commenting on his sentence on Friday, Pivovarov’s close ally, Tatyana Usmanova, promised in a Facebook post that the fight for his freedom would continue. “An appeal and the Supreme Court are ahead, we will continue to fight,” Usmanova wrote.
Also on Friday, Russian authorities declared two investigative news outlets “undesirable,” banning their operation in Russia.
The Prosecutor General’s office told the Russian state news agency Tass that the investigative group Bellingcat and the Russian online outlet The Insider, as well as the Czech non-profit CEELI Institute, “represent a threat to the foundations of order”. Constitution and the security of the (country).
The Insider, a Latvian-registered news outlet, has worked with Bellingcat on high-profile cases, such as the nerve agent poisonings of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and Russian opposition leader Navalny. The websites of both have been blocked in Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian authorities have blocked dozens of news sites and pulled a renowned critical radio station off the airwaves. The websites of several foreign media outlets have also been blocked in Russia, as Moscow sought to control the narrative of what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
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