The former photographer of Navalny’s headquarters in Arkhangelsk left the colony

Ruslan Akhmetshin, a former photographer of Navalny’s headquarters in the region, was released from a settlement colony in the Arkhangelsk region. This was reported to Sever.Realia by his friends who came to meet him near the FSIN office. Akhmetshin was sentenced to two and a half years under the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism.

A criminal case against Akhmetshin was initiated in March 2022 due to several posts about Victory Day on social networks. In one of them, the activist wrote that May 9 in today’s Russia is not a day of mourning, but “some kind of masquerade led by high-ranking officials.” In the second post, he noted that the Soviet Union and Germany were allies for two years and “unleashed the Second World War together.” Ruslan Akhmetshin’s comments on his repost of Viktor Shenderovych’s text about Victory Day were the reason for the initiation of the case.

The court chose for him a measure of restraint in the form of prohibition of certain actions. There was no travel ban for them, but on May 9, Akhmetshin was detained at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport when he tried to fly to Yerevan for treatment. At the request of the investigation, the court changed the activist’s restraining order to arrest. The human rights project “Support of political prisoners. Memorial” recognized Ruslan Akhmetshin as a political prisoner.

In October 2022, Akhmetshin was sentenced to two and a half years in a colony-settlement, and his term of stay in a pre-trial detention center began.

• Ruslan Akhmetshin has repeatedly been held accountable for his activist activities. In June 2021, the Arkhangelsk court arrested him for 10 days for commenting on a VKontakte post about the results of elections in the region. In March, Akhmetshin and other regional activists were searched in the case of Navalny’s “extremist organizations”. Akhmetshin was a witness in the case.