Pressure on Russia’s opposition: Unyielding – despite the threat of imprisonment

After his arrest, the Russian opposition figure Roisman faces a long prison sentence. He is among the few voices that still openly condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Even pressure from the state cannot prevent them from doing so.

In mid-July, the former mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roisman, posted a photo from earlier times. It shows him together with the opposition politicians Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin and Andrei Piwovarov. “I alone,” he wrote, “am still free.”

Roisman himself has been behind bars since yesterday. After a house search, he was taken into custody – in front of running cameras.

He asks police officers under which article of the penal code they take him away. They call it Article 280.3 – it criminalizes public acts aimed at discrediting the Russian armed forces.

process elsewhere

Roismann is to be tried, not in Yekaterinburg, where he still has supporters, but in Moscow. Because he publicly calls the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine a war. Because he’s talking about an invasion. And because he – while he is being taken away – announces that he intends to continue doing so.

Neither Roisman nor Yashin nor Kara-Murza want to bow to the massive pressure from the Russian security and judicial authorities. Knowing full well that they face several years in prison due to the tightened legislation after Russia invaded Ukraine. For discrediting the armed forces or – what is even more serious – for spreading false news about the Russian army.

“My position is very simple: I will not run away, I will not hide from anyone. I am against the war because I am a patriot. Because from my point of view this war harms the national interests of my country,” Yashin said in social media Reported to media after being served with multiple court summonses.

First warning: a fine

As a rule, the first thing to do is to deal with administrative procedures. About administrative offenses that are punished with fines.

It is an attempt to intimidate critics and those who think differently and to silence them, says Lev Schlosberg, one of the last remaining free opposition politicians who, like Roisman and Yashin, has already had to pay a fine. “An administrative procedure is a yellow card. And if you keep talking, you get a red.”

Hundreds of criminal cases are ongoing

The civil rights portal OVD-Info has already counted almost 4,000 such “yellow cards” in the past six months. More than 200 criminal proceedings have been initiated, at the end of which the “red card” threatens: a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

For the lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, it is an attempt to get rid of the few opposition members who remain in the country and are still free and who are still expressing criticism. With the help of military censorship: “They obviously decided to cement the last remnants of the opposition in concrete,” he says.

“You have to stay true to yourself”

Everyone has to decide for themselves how to deal with the situation, says Schlosberg. There is no panacea: “It’s important to stay true to yourself. To stay with yourself.”

Much is at stake for those who dare to continue to publicly criticize the Kremlin’s actions.