As Wagner boss walks free after revolt, Russia continues crackdown on critics – National | 24CA News
Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led an armed rebel in opposition to the Russian army — and walked free. Others who merely voiced criticism in opposition to the Kremlin weren’t so fortunate.
On Tuesday, Russia’s principal home safety company, the FSB, stated it had dropped the felony investigation into final week’s revolt, with no costs in opposition to Prigozhin or any of the opposite members, although a few dozen Russian troops had been killed in clashes.
The Kremlin had promised to not prosecute Prigozhin after reaching an settlement with him that he would halt the rebellion and retreat to neighboring Belarus. That got here although President Vladimir Putin vowed to punish these behind the rebel.
Asked about this U-turn by The Associated Press throughout a convention name with reporters on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to remark.
Prigozhin’s escape from prosecution — not less than for now — is in stark distinction to how the Kremlin has handled anti-government protests talking out in opposition to the conflict in Ukraine or difficult Putin’s rule.
When requested about it, Peskov cited Putin’s “will to prevent the events from developing according to the worst case scenario,” together with guarantees and ensures given to Prigozhin.
Ivan Pavlov, a distinguished lawyer who has labored on many high-profile instances involving the FSB, instructed AP that “laws don’t work in Russia, and if they do, it’s very selective.”
The motive, Pavlov stated, is “political expedience.”
That the case in opposition to Prigozhin was dropped is “nothing short of a disgrace.”
Imprisoned opposition chief Alexei Navalny has been thrown into an isolation cell on the penal colony the place he’s serving 9 years for minor transgressions of jail guidelines.
“I would love to see Navalny’s face at the next court hearing over incorrectly buttoning (his prison garb) when it he is told that an armed rebellion case was closed because the person implicated in it agreed to leave to Belarus,” stated Navalny ally Georgy Alburov in a tweet on Tuesday.
When Navalny discovered concerning the rebel from his legal professionals throughout a courtroom listening to, he stated he thought it was a joke.
“They were telling me about the seizure of Rostov, the helicopters that had been shot down, and the armed column heading for Moscow … I kept expecting someone to suddenly yell `You got punk’d!’ But no one did,” a social media submit by Navalny stated.
Then once more, Prigozhin had longtime hyperlinks to Putin and has gained profitable Kremlin catering contracts earlier than founding the personal army contractor Wagner, which has despatched forces to Syria, African international locations and Ukraine.
Harsh punishments for discrediting military
Publicly spreading “false information” concerning the Russian military or “discrediting” it turned a felony offense every week after the Kremlin despatched its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Authorities use the regulation to clamp down on anybody talking out in opposition to the conflict or deviating from its official narrative.
The crackdown has been sweeping throughout Russia, with regulation enforcement concentrating on each distinguished opposition figures and strange residents.
Opposition politician Ilya Yashin obtained 8 1/2 years in jail after being convicted on this cost for decrying atrocities by Russian troops within the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. A colleague on a Moscow municipal council, Alexei Gorinov, received seven years on the identical costs.
In a Facebook submit from his authorized staff, Yashin famous that Prigozhin “slammed the entire military leadership’s face into a table, captured a city and fired at Russian military aircraft.”
But he then famous that Gorinov, opposition Figure Evgeny Roizman and himself “are still the ones discrediting the army. Of course.”
St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko is on trial for changing 4 small worth tags in a grocery store with antiwar slogans. She has spent over a yr in pretrial detention and faces as much as 10 years in jail if convicted.
A single father within the Tula area south of Moscow was sentenced to 2 years after his teenage daughter made an antiwar portray at college.
According to OVD-Info, a distinguished Russian rights group that gives authorized assist, 603 folks face felony costs for antiwar stances as of late June. Many had been fined for conflict protests, which authorities deem to be discrediting the military — together with those that held up clean items of paper or Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.”
Prigozhin, who for months publicly blasted army management with expletive-ridden insults on social media, by no means confronted these costs.
Vandalizing army enlistment places of work
Prigozhin additionally admitted that his fighters struck Russian army plane through the revolt, resulting in the deaths of these aboard.
A lot of strange Russians who threw Molotov cocktails or in any other case tried to set army enlistment places of work on hearth as a part of their expression of shock over the conflict, had been handed lengthy jail phrases, although these acts hardly ever brought about main harm.
Since the conflict started, Russian media reported not less than 77 makes an attempt to set enlistment places of work on hearth. Many have resulted in convictions.
The longest sentence to date — 19 years — has been given to Roman Nasryev and Alexei Nuriyev, who had been accused of throwing Molotov cocktails into an enlistment workplace within the city of Bakal, within the Chelyabinsk area. The hearth was small and nobody was harm, media stories stated.
Nasryev instructed the courtroom he was expressing his “disagreement with the special military operation,” the time period the Kremlin makes use of for the conflict in Ukraine.
A sentence of 13 years was handed to Kiril Butylin, a plumber in a city outdoors Moscow. He was charged with vandalism, public requires terrorist exercise and a terrorist act after he painted a Ukrainian flag and wrote an antiwar slogan on a wall of an enlistment workplace and threw two Molotov cocktails at it.
Sentences for others for attempting to set hearth to such places of work ranged from to 1 1/2 to 12 years.
In a speech to the nation on Saturday, Putin used the time period “treason” to discuss with Prigozhin’s rebel. It’s a grave offense in Russia that’s adjudicated in secrecy and nearly by no means leads to an acquittal.
In latest years, it has been wielded in opposition to Kremlin critics, scientists engaged on worldwide analysis and, most just lately, Russians who oppose the conflict and donate cash to help Ukraine’s military.
On Monday, 70-year-old aerospace scientist Valery Golubkin was convicted of treason and given a 12-year jail time period over state secrets and techniques to representatives overseas organizations. Golubkin maintained his innocence, and his legal professionals argued he was engaged on a global mission and was permitted to share information together with his overseas companions.
Earlier this yr, high opposition determine Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was convicted of treason for publicly denouncing the conflict and was sentenced to 25 years.
Last yr, former journalist Ivan Safronov was convicted of treason and sentenced to 22 years for passing army secrets and techniques to Czech intelligence and a German nationwide. Safronov insisted on his innocence, and lots of Russian journalists view the case in opposition to him as revenge for his reporting that uncovered shady arms offers.
