Russian opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said on Tuesday that law enforcement officers were conducting searches in his house, as well as in the homes of his head of staff, Vitaly Venidiktov, and his former aide and the ex-head of the now-defunct opposition group Open Russia, Alexander Solovyov
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st June, 2021) Russian opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said on Tuesday that law enforcement officers were conducting searches in his house, as well as in the homes of his head of staff, Vitaly Venidiktov, and his former aide and the ex-head of the now-defunct opposition group Open Russia, Alexander Solovyov.
"There are searches at my dacha [a summer house] near Kolomna [city in the Moscow Region]. Just as in [the home of] my former assistant Alexander Solovyov. Just as in [the house of] my chief of staff Vitaly Venidiktov. I do not know the formal reason. The real one is clear," Gudkov wrote on Telegram.
Another ex-head of Open Russia, Andrey Pivovarov, was detained in the Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, his lawyer Elena Borodina said on Monday. The opposition figure, in turn, said that he was pulled off an aircraft.
Late on Monday, Pivovarov said that investigators filed a case against him for cooperating with an undesirable organization, adding that he was currently at the Investigative Committee, awaiting an interrogation..
The opposition figure may face a prison term of two to six years.
In 2017, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office labeled the activity of three foreign NGOs associated with the Open Russia group as undesirable in the country � the UK-based OR (Otkrytaya Rossia), the US-based Institute of Modern Russia, as well as the UK-based Open Russia Civic Movement. According to the prosecutors, these organizations set up at the initiative of former Yukos co-owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky carry out in Russia "special programs and projects in order to discredit the results of elections, to recognize their results as illegitimate."
