St. Petersburg police raid the home of arrested campaign manager's mother

Earlier today, officers from the St. Petersburg police department raided the home of Raisa Tyurina, the mother of Andrei Pivovarov, the Democratic Coalition’s campaign manager in Kostroma. Earlier this week, police arrested Pivovarov on suspicion that he sought unauthorized access to computer data.

According to Polina Nemirovskaya, an activist working with the opposition in Kostroma, police entered Tyurina’s home just as she was leaving. Nemirovskaya says a lawyer was contacted immediately.

According to the pro-Kremlin news channel LifeNews, Pivovarov tried to buy from a police officer the local government's database of signatures, which could presumably have been used to falsify documents necessary to register candidates in the coming elections. The police officer is now under investigation for abuse of authority. Pivovarov’s allies insist that the charges against him are political, saying they are part of a larger campaign to hinder the movement’s ability to participate in regional elections later this year.

The Democratic Coalition is a collaboration between several opposition groups: Alexei Navalny’s Party of Progress, "Parnas" (the People's Freedom Party), and several others. The coalition was founded to provide a platform for like-minded candidates to participate in elections across Russia’s regions.