Skip to main content

Police crackdown on protest organizers and supportive local officials in two cities outside Moscow

Source: Meduza

You don’t have to be an oil tycoon with designs on the presidency to trigger a police crackdown. Three small businessmen in Volokolamsk have helped organize protests against a landfill outside Moscow. Now two of them are behind bars and police have raided their offices.

Read about Artem Lyubimov, Andrey Zhdanov, and Ramazan Bairamov

And you don’t have to be a protest organizer to earn a visit from Johnny Law. This week, investigators, officers from an economic crimes police unit, and masked federal agents raided district administrative offices in Volokolamsk and Serpukhov, after officials issued permits for protests against local landfills. On April 14, when Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov celebrates his birthday, more than a dozen towns surrounding the capital will hold demonstrations against overflowing local trash dumps.

In Volokolamsk

On April 4, Moscow police came to the Volokolamsk administrative building and copied paperwork related to a water-supply facility built in 2017.

In Serpukhov

Police officers and six FSB agents wearing masks and bullet-proof vests raided the administrative building in Serpukhov on April 5, seizing documents from 2007 and 2008 about real-estate allocations for housing construction. Another 15 cops raided the “Nadezhda” Serpukhov Sports Palace, where protesters have a permit to stage a protest on April 14 against the “Lesnaya” garbage dump.

Alexander Shestun, the head of the Serpukhov district, says the raids are tied to upcoming local elections, which were restored on April 5 after being abolished in 2015.