We all know that history tends to repeat itself. But it doesn’t usually happen so quickly.

Does anyone remember the case of Russian-American Ksenia Karelina, who was arrested in 2024 on charges of treason while visiting her family in Yekaterinburg, Russia? She was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the alleged offense of having contributed $51 to a pro-Ukraine fund — a transaction only discovered when her cell phone was seized and her data reviewed.

Karelina was lucky; in April of 2025, she was included in a multi-nation prisoner swap and returned safely home to the U.S. after serving more than a year of her sentence.

In what may be an indication that the Putin regime is running out of excuses to arrest people — and specifically Russian citizens living outside of Russia but returning to visit relatives — they’ve done it again. Or perhaps it’s a ruse that has worked so well in the past, they simply keep repeating it.

Mikhail Loshchinin, 48, is a Belgian and Russian citizen who has lived in the European Union since 1999. In 2021, he traveled by motorcycle to Russia and returned to his home in Western Europe without incident. So last summer (2025), when his father, who still lives in Russia, suffered a heart attack, he decided to make the trip again.

But this trip did not go well. Shortly after legally crossing the border into Russia from Latvia, he was detained, tortured, and tried on a charge of treason — specifically, for “financing representatives of a foreign state recognized as an adversary of the Russian Federation.” [RFE/RL’s Russian Serivce and Current Time, June 5, 2026.]

Again, the government’s only evidence consisted of a single transfer of the equivalent of $245 to a Ukrainian former girlfriend.

According to Loshchinin’s mother, he was sent to a facility for Ukrainian prisoners of war in Stary Oskol, a city in the Belgorod region of Russia near the Ukraine border. She reports that his eyeglasses were taken from him, leaving him nearly blind, and that the guards “tortured and humiliated him, both morally and physically,” including stripping him naked and beating him. [Id.]

In response to questions he received from the Russian-language media outlet Bereg, Loshchinin wrote:

“I won’t describe all the atrocities. . . . But the psychological and physical torture was daily. It’s a world where you’re no longer a person. Where you’re happy when you’re in your cell with the door closed and the hallway silent. Where hell comes in every time the door opens. And the door opened often.” [Id.]

But, he said, “I met people who suffered a lot more.” [Id.]

In August, he was transferred to a pretrial detention center in Pskov, which “looks [like] a five-star hotel” compared to the prison at Stary Oskol. But there was no medical care, despite the fact that he needs surgery on one eye. Authorities have even refused to provide the vitamins that could slow the deterioration of his eyesight. [Id.]

On June 2, 2026, Mikhail Loshchinin was (of course) convicted of treason and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He has been designated a political prisoner by the Russian rights group Memorial, which has a current list of 1,170 such cases.

Loshchinin maintains his innocence, and has vowed to keep fighting. He says that:

“Because of everything that has happened, [my life] now has more of a spiritual than a physical meaning. I have seen and felt so may lies, so much terror and lawlessness, and have heard so many stories that made me cry upon returning to my cell. Fighting alone is much easier than watching other innocent people suffer and not being able to help them.” [Id.]

If there are still people who believe that today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin is a “kinder, gentler” place than the former Soviet Union, they have only to study Mikhail Loshchinin’s case — or any of the thousands of others like his — to discover the barbaric treatment that continues unchecked despite worldwide condemnation and sanctions.

*. *. *

Today, Mikhail Loshchinin’s name is added to our list, joining the others whom we remember again this week:

Prisoners of War:

The 20,000+ Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
The People of Ukraine

Immigrant Detainees in Russia:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Endangered Exiles:

Pavel “Pasha” Talankin
Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Oleg Orlov
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Afghanistan:

Mahmoud Habibi (Afghan-American)
Paul Overby (American, missing since 2018)

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
Farid Mehralizada
Ulvi Hasanli
Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
Mahammad Kekalov
Hafiz Babali
Nargiz Absalamova
Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Andrei Chapiuk
Uladzimir Labkovich
Andrzej Poczobut
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Georgia:

Mzia Amaglobeli

In Russia:

The “Crimea 8”:
Oleg Antipov
Artyom Azatyan
Georgy Azatyan
Aleksandr Bylin
Roman Solomko
Artur Terchanyan
Dmitry Tyazhelykh
Vladimir Zloba

James Scott Rhys Anderson (British)
Aleksandr Andreyev
David Barnes (American)
Yevgenia Berkovich
Gordon Black (American)
Hayden Davies (British)
Yury Dmitriyev
Anastasia Dyudyaeva
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman (American)
Stephen James Hubbard (American)
Sergey Karelin
Timur Kishukov
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake (American)
Aleksei Liptser
Mikhail Loshchinin
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika NovakSvetlana Petriichuk
Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Lev Schlossberg
Sofiane Sehili (French)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector (American)
Joseph Tater (American, disappeared)Karina Tsurkan
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland (American)

You have not been, and will not be, forgotten.

Prisoners of War:

The 20,000+ Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
The People of Ukraine

Immigrant Detainees in Russia:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Endangered Exiles:

Pavel “Pasha” Talankin
Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Oleg Orlov
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Afghanistan:

Mahmoud Habibi (Afghan-American)
Paul Overby (American, missing since 2018)

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
Farid Mehralizada
Ulvi Hasanli
Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
Mahammad Kekalov
Hafiz Babali
Nargiz Absalamova
Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Andrei Chapiuk
Uladzimir Labkovich
Andrzej Poczobut
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Georgia:

Mzia Amaglobeli

In Russia:

The “Crimea 8”:
Oleg Antipov
Artyom Azatyan
Georgy Azatyan
Aleksandr Bylin
Roman Solomko
Artur Terchanyan
Dmitry Tyazhelykh
Vladimir Zloba

James Scott Rhys Anderson (British)
Aleksandr Andreyev
David Barnes (American)
Yevgenia Berkovich
Gordon Black (American)
Hayden Davies (British)
Yury Dmitriyev
Anastasia Dyudyaeva
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman (American)
Stephen James Hubbard (American)
Sergey Karelin
Timur Kishukov
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake (American)
Aleksei Liptser
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika NovakSvetlana Petriichuk
Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Lev Schlossberg
Sofiane Sehili (French)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector (American)
Joseph Tater (American, disappeared)Karina Tsurkan
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland (American)

You have not been, and will not be, forgotten.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/14/26