Sunday again, and we have updates on three of our HOSTAGES, plus a new one to add. Not a good week.

Let’s start with the new kid on the block: Konstantin Gabov, identified by the Russian authorities as a Moscow journalist for the Reuters news agency, who has previously worked for Russian broadcasters Moskva 24 and MIR. On Saturday, April 27th, he was detained by Moscow police and accused of participating in “preparing photo and video material” for the late Alexei Navalny’s YouTube channel, “Navalny LIVE.” As is well known, Navalny had been designated a “foreign agent” and was serving a combined 30-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony when he died under suspicious circumstances on February 16th of this year.

Gabov is one of the lucky ones, so far: his initial pretrial detention is to be served under house arrest, rather than in prison. The April 27th statement from the press office of the Basmanny District Court reads in part:

“Gabov participated in the preparations of photo and video materials for publication on the NavalnyLIVE YouTube channel. The court ruled to place him in custody for the term of two months, i.e. until June 27, 2024.” NavalnyLIVE was referred to in the statement as an “extremist community”; the penalty for participation in such an organization can bring a sentence of imprisonment for two to six years. [The Insider, April 27, 2024.]

Having been associated in any way with Navalny has proven hazardous to one’s health in Russia, and has precipitated the exodus of members of his team to other, safer European locations . . . although even that is no guarantee of protection. In March of this year, one of Navalny’s team, Leonid Volkov, was attacked and brutally beaten with a hammer by assailants in front of his home-in-exile in Lithuania. Luckily, he survived. Arrests have been made in Poland of two suspects, but their message has been clearly received: no one is 100% safe from Moscow’s vengeance.

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Gabov is not the only former associate of Navalny to make it onto our HOSTAGE list. Antonina Favorskaya, a photographer who covered Navalny’s trials for independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision, is already included (see below). She was initially accused of “disobeying a police officer” and detained for ten days in March, supposedly to be charged or released by March 27th. But that did not happen; instead, in a closed-door hearing in a Moscow court, she was ordered to be held for two additional months until May 28th “pending investigation on charges of allegedly participating in an extremist group.” [Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), March 29, 2024.] And so it begins.

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Our other updates today are as follows:

Robert Woodland Romanov: At his scheduled court appearance on April 25th, this dual Russian-American citizen’s case was adjourned until mid-May — a typical delaying tactic designed, not to give both sides an opportunity to prepare their legal arguments, but simply to wear down the defendant, both mentally and physically.

Evan Gershkovich: The American Wall Street Journal reporter, arrested over a year ago, had his appeal against his continued detention rejected. No surprise there; Russian courts rarely, if ever, reverse themselves or each other.

Vladimir Kara-Murza: The most urgent of our HOSTAGE cases, dual Russian-British citizen Kara-Murza has been in failing health for some time. And this week it was reported that:

“As he languishes in solitary confinement in a Siberian penal colony, his doctors warn that he will not survive another year without proper medical treatment, which Vladimir Putin’s regime is denying as part of a slow-moving, torturous assassination.

”Now, Mr. Kara-Murza is slated for yet another arbitrary transfer nearly 3,000 kilometres back to Moscow for a sham hearing. In his current medical condition, the multiweek transfer is a form of torture that could kill him. And even if it doesn’t, there is a risk of enforced disappearance and outright murder.” [Brandon Silver, Irwin Cotler and Bill Browder, The Globe and Mail, April 24, 2024.]

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I keep asking myself: How many ghosts does Vladimir Putin need hanging over his head before he calls a halt to the murder and mayhem of his regime? And how long will the people of Russia allow it to continue?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/28/24

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So, once again I beg you, please do not forget them; their families and friends haven’t. And here, one more time, are their pictures as a weekly reminder that they are real, and truly suffering. In no particular order, they are:

Brendochka
4/28/24