Well, the roster just keeps growing. Today’s subject is new to my list of hostages, but evidently not to the Kremlin’s shit list. His name is Aleksandr Skobov, age 66, and according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) (April 10, 2024):

“[He] has been a thorn in the side of authoritarian governments for more than four decades, from the Soviet era to President Vladimir Putin’s long rule. And now, in pretrial detention in St. Petersburg and facing prison, he is in no mood for compromise.”

On March 22, 2024, he was designated by the Russian government as a “foreign agent” — a favorite appellation for anyone who does not toe the Putin line. “On principle I refuse to comply with fascist laws,” he told RFE/RL. “I don’t intend to get into debates with the government. I will not try to prove my innocence. I will not label my writings, and I will not write any financial reports for them. A criminal case could be launched at any moment.”

Prophetic words. On April 3rd, he was arrested and charged with “justifying terrorism.” His actual crime: posting on social media information about the Ukrainian attacks on the Crimea Bridge — attacks that Russia has labelled “an act of terrorism” (see my April 5 post, “The Russian Comedy Club,” for more of Putin’s reaction).

The gutsy Mr. Skobov has freely accepted responsibility for what he calls “a whole bouquet of possible charges” resulting from his YouTube videos: “Discrediting the army. Inciting hatred and enmity. Justifying terrorism. The rehabilitation of Nazism. I directly equate the actions of the Stalin regime with those of Hitler’s during World War II.” [RFE/RL, April 10, 2024.]

He also openly admits his participation in a group known as the Free Russia Forum, which has been declared “undesirable” in Russia. If charged with that “crime,” his conviction could result in a sentence of up to six years in prison. [Id.]

Mr. Skobov is not a stranger to the Russian prison system. As a young man in 1978, he was arrested for publishing an anti-government magazine, and spent about six months in a KGB prison, followed by forced psychiatric treatment, for a total of three years. Psychiatric treatment — a common form of incarceration in Soviet times — was again the punishment, this time for five years, for his later publication of a samizdat (clandestinely self-published) article criticizing Chile’s dictator General Pinochet. The article was deemed to be anti-Soviet propaganda. [Id.]

Thus, Aleksandr Skobov has more than earned a place on my list of Russian political prisoners being held hostage for the mere act of voicing opinions contrary to those of you-know-who. A sad honor, indeed.

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And equally disturbing are three recent updates to the circumstances in which other political hostages have already found themselves: Lilia Chanysheva, Ilya Yashin, and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Ms. Chanysheva was already serving a 7-1/2-year prison term on charges of “extremism,” for having acted as head of the late Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption team in the Bashkortostan region of Russia. But someone recently determined that 7-1/2 years weren’t enough, and at a closed hearing, the Bashkortostan Supreme Court extended her sentence by two years. Period. End of discussion. No justification required.

Russian justice at its most efficient.

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In another case, our good friend Ilya Yashin has been serving 8-1/2 years since his conviction in 2022 for reporting on his YouTube channel about the Russian army’s destruction of the town of Bucha, Ukraine. Yashin was also an ally of Alexei Navalny, which, in and of itself, makes him a likely target for “special treatment” by the Russian penal system. His latest so-called infraction: taking off his jacket at breakfast in the prison cafeteria. Instead of a lengthening of his sentence, he was simply thrown into solitary confinement for ten days.

Under the Russian penal code, you never have to worry about actually being guilty of anything. If they can’t find something to charge you with, they’ll just make it up.

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And last, but far from least, is Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is serving a brutal 25-year sentence in Siberian Penal Colony IK-7, for “spreading false information about the Russian army” by speaking out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He is just 42 years old, but is not in the best of health; he suffers from a condition that requires regular medication and exercise; yet he has been kept in solitary confinement for months, and in January was moved into a small “punishment cell,” where he would receive no medical care. Since the suspicious death of Alexei Navalny in February, Kara-Murza’s family and friends have become increasingly frightened for his life . . . and not without good reason. But negotiations between the U.K. and U.S. governments (he holds joint Russian/U.K. citizenship) and the Russian side seem to be stalled.

The old Soviet style of getting rid of a prisoner was merely putting a bullet into the back of his head. Today’s method: simply letting him die of “natural causes.” It has the advantage of plausible deniability . . . and it’s so much cleaner.

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Such is our unfortunate update on the hostage situation for now. I’m not sure how or why I began this personal crusade in the first place, but it is a cause to which I am now firmly committed. I may be just a lone voice shouting in the wilderness, but I keep hoping that every voice — like every vote — really does count. So I keep shouting, praying that someone will hear me.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/11/24