Russian authorities raid homes in multiple Russian regions in connection with Ilya Ponomarev case

Russian law enforcement officers reportedly raided the homes of people in at least four of the country’s regions on Thursday morning in connection with the ongoing case against former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev, who left Russia after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and currently lives in Ukraine.

The state-run news outlet RIA Novosti published a video that showed officers breaking down the door of the apartment of opposition politician and Moscow State University professor Mikhail Lobanov (a pro-war Z symbol that Lobanov posted about finding painted on his door in February can be seen in the clip). At 6:33 a.m., Lobanov wrote on Telegram: “I just woke up and they’re breaking down our door.” Tatyana Okushko, a lawyer with the human rights media project OVD-Info, went to the scene of the raid, but police refused to let her in the apartment.

Representatives of Lobanov reported that he has no links to Ilya Ponomarev. “Mikhail is being persecuted for his political activities and his open position. He has no connection to Ilya Ponomarev or any of his projects,” they wrote on Telegram. Ponomarev himself told the outlet Sota that he doesn’t know Lobanov.

The Telegram channel 112 reported that raids in purported connection with the case against Ponomareva took place in five regions, while the state-run outlet TASS said they occurred in four regions. In addition to Lobanov, law enforcement reportedly searched the homes of Yabloko party members Galina Filchenko and Mikhail Khananashvili.

According to 112, the authorities were targeting people who took part in meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies, which was declared an “undesirable” organization by Russia’s Prosecutor General in April. The Congress bills itself as the “Russian parliament of the transitional period after the fall of the Putin regime.”