Three far-right activists arrested for kidnapping and torturing teenager in Russian forest

Police in the Russian city of Kovrov (roughly 175 miles northeast of Moscow) have arrested three members of a far-right organization on charges of aggravated kidnapping. The suspects are reportedly local men in their late twenties and early thirties who belong to the group “Russkaya Obshchina” (Russian Community). Two of the three men have already been sent to pretrial detention, while the third awaits his arraignment hearing.

According to state investigators, the suspects got into an argument with a local teenager on the evening of May 25. Threatening him with violence, the men then took their victim into the forest, tied him up, and held him captive for at least three hours. During this time, they beat and tortured him with various objects, including a plastic bag and an electric shock device. The three men also threatened him with a knife. A source told the news outlet Potok that the assailants additionally threatened to rape the young man with a rubber baton and then kill him.

Eventually, the suspects abandoned their victim in the forest, and he managed to free himself and contact the police.

Police in the St. Petersburg area searched the homes of five Russkaya Obshchina members in early May as part of a negligent homicide investigation launched after a vigilante operation by the right-wing group resulted in a man’s death in Vsevolozhsk.