Unknown Petersburg resident arrested in Moscow, charged with treason

A Moscow court has ordered the detention of Vyacheslav Lutor for treason and participating in a terrorist organization, reports independent publication Mediazona. 

It’s unclear who this person is or why a criminal case was opened against him. Russian state news agency TASS, citing law enforcement agencies, writes that Lutor is a 33-year-old St. Petersburg resident who worked in the banking sector.

According to Mediazona, Lutor has been arrested and jailed twice before. On June 11, he was sentenced to jail time for petty hooliganism after he “used obscene language, shouted loudly, and waved his arms in [Moscow’s] Vnukovo Airport,” according to the court. He was put in jail again on July 14 for disobeying police orders. Lutor was supposed to leave the special detention center today, July 29.

There have been two similar cases in which the Russian authorities ultimately opened felony cases for treason or terrorism against Russian nationals who rode the “arrest carousel” after speaking out against the ongoing war.

In June, the activist Anatoly Bereznikov died in detention in Rostov-on-Don, where he had been held since mid-May. The detention center said he died of suicide, though his lawyer, Irina Gak, was sure that he died while being tortured. 

In June, the authorities opened a case on “justifying terrorism” against Timofey Rudenko, a former military psychologist. He had been sent to detention, where he was tortured, eight times in the year preceding the felony case.