Russian film director fined for underwear protest outside FSB headquarters

A Moscow district court has fined Russian film director Vitaly Mansky 10,000 rubles ($135) for conducting a one-man protest with a pair of blue boxer shorts outside the FSB headquarters in December 2020. 

Lawyer Alena Borisova from the human rights group Pravozashchita Otkrytki told MBX Media that lawyers have yet to see the statement of reasons from the judgement, but they have no doubt that it’s “boilerplate.” “We will certainly challenge this decision, she added.

In the protocol on the administrative violation, the blue boxer shorts Manksy used in his protest (in reference to the August 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny) were deemed “a means of visual agitation.” As it happens, the authorities have yet to return the boxer shorts. “We’ll find out about the underwear when we receive the ruling,” Borisova said.

On December 21, Navalny shared a video revealing that he had managed to fool an FSB operative implicated in his poisoning into detailing the Kremlin’s operation. Among other things, the FSB agent divulged that the poison used on Navalny was applied to the inside of a pair of his underwear (which were blue). The FSB dismissed the recording as fake. The revelations prompted a number of protests in support of Navalny, including Vitaly Mansky’s solo-picket outside of the FSB headquarters in Moscow.