Russian court fines Kursk region refugee for staging protest to demand promised housing assistance

A district court in Kursk fined a local man 20,000 rubles ($200) for allegedly organizing a protest by Sudzha refugees against the region’s authorities for failing to provide promised housing assistance to those forced from their homes by Ukrainian troops.

Prosecutors said Andrey Gerasimenko, 37, “spread the word” about the protest by writing about it on social media, which constitutes a misdemeanor offense in Russia without a demonstration permit. Gerasimenko’s home in the city of Malaya Loknya has been under Ukrainian occupation since late August.

On Sunday, November 10, a few dozen refugees from Sudzha assembled in central Kursk to demand more decisive relief efforts by the region’s authorities amid Ukraine’s partial invasion of the area. 

After the protest, Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov met with some of the refugees and announced that he’d fired the Sudzha district’s administrative head. However, Kursk’s regional prosecutor later reprimanded the governor himself for failing to meet the state’s obligations to the refugees.