The founder of the “Walk in the Forest” project, Sverdlin, is wanted

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has declared Grigory Sverdlin, a human rights activist and founder of the “Walk in the Forest” project, which helps Russians avoid mobilization or desertion, on federal wanted list. This is reported by “Mediazona” with reference to the department’s search database.

In the search card, as usual, the article of the Criminal Code, according to which Sverdlin is being pursued, is not specified. In a comment to “Mediazone”, Sverdlin said that he did not know anything about the case against him. On Facebook, he wrote that he was “fine”, he was “not threatened by anything”, and noted that he was not planning to go to Russia now. “The best way to support me is to support “Go to the forest,”” Sverdlin wrote.

Last week, the Ministry of Justice entered Sverdlin in the register of “foreign agents”. The authorities claim that he, while living abroad, opposed the war, and also “spoke negatively” about the Russian authorities. The criminal case was not reported at that time.

The Sverdlin project “Walk in the forest” appeared in the fall of 2022 – immediately after the announcement of the so-called partial mobilization in Russia. According to the founder, the project is a Telegram bot in which volunteers “advise safe routes to leave the country, places where you can hide from subpoenas in Russia, help with money for a ticket,” notes Nastoyaschee Vremya. According to Sverdlin, during the existence of the project, it was possible to help about 20 thousand people.

Before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sverdlin was the director of the “Nochlezhka” homeless relief fund. In March 2022, he left the project and left Russia.