The 10th anniversary of “Father Frost against Putin” festival is approaching, so it is time for a throwback to what happened last January. Then the festival was held for the first time in three years. Initially the border was closed by Covid, then by the war in Ukraine, but in the end it was decided to continue organizing the festival in Helsinki, just under new conditions.
Festival program is now published.
Father Frost against Putin -festival was organised first time 10 years ago. From 2014 to 2020 festival was organised seven times, and Russian grassroots organisations told about their activities and networked between each other.
The anarchist Ruslan Siddiqui is accused of causing an explosion, on a railway used to transport military equipment and fuel to the Russian army in Ukraine. The result was the derailment of 19 carriages of a goods train in the Ryazan region. There were no casualties, although the driver’s assistant sustained non-serious injuries. Russian Railways assessed the damage at €300.000. Ruslan has been charged with committing a terrorist act, and possession of explosive material.
Anarchist Ruslan Siddiqui, accused of rail line disruption and drone attack on a military airport in Ryazan Oblast, was transferred from SIZO “Kapotnya” at the outskirts of Moscow to “Matrosskaya Tishina”. As the antiwar human rights initiative “Solidarity zone” writes, Siddiqui himself informed a friend in a letter about the transfer.
New address for letters and parcels:
Help the defendants of the "Tyumen case" in their fight for freedom!
Firefund.net calls everyone to support the crowdfunding to pay the lawyers for the defendants in the "Tyumen case". Deadline is 1th of January 2024.
At the end of November, the anarchist Ruslan Siddiqui was arrested on suspicion of organising the derailment of a goods train in Ryazan province. On 2 December, the Dorogomilovsky district court in Moscow sent Ruslan to pre-trial detention.
Acts of railway sabotage are now quite common in Russia. Partisans use these to block the delivery of military supplies to the armed forces operating on Ukrainian territory.
On November 25 and 26, the Anarchist Book Fair is taking place in Amsterdam (Plantage Doklaan 8-12); in addition to books, various horizontal groups will give presentations and workshops on these days.
Anti-War Human Rights Initiative Solidarity zone will take a table at the fair, where you can buy T-shirts, scarves, posters, badges and other merch.
In memory of anarchist from Moscow Dmitry Petrov, who gone in fights against Russia’s Invasion in Ukraine.
On October 9 at 20.30 will be shown a documentary film about participants of anti-fascist and anarchist groups during the anti-Putin protests of 2011-2012.
This video on YouTube channel "The Right Podcast" includes an overview of Autonomous Action and an interview with Antti Rautiainen who was exiled from Russia. Antti talks about the history of Autonomous Action, the current website that arose from the movement, events in Russia leading up to his exile, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, anarchist resistance to Russia, work with political prisoners and more.
Today, September 9, 2023, Dmitry Petrov would have turned 34 years old. On the website of his memory leshy.info you can read and listen to Dima’s biography, his interviews and lectures, his articles and articles about him. There are links to books he translated or edited, to projects in which he participated. The memorial website consists of sections in Russian, English and Ukrainian.
July 28th the First Eastern Regional Court in Khabarovsk has handed down its sentence in the case of the burning of the National Guard building in Komsomolsk on the Amur. The 51-year old taxi-driver Vladimir Zolotarev was found guilty of committing an "act of terrorism", even though no-one was harmed in the fire.
Ivan Kudryashov is an anti-war activist who made a street art piece in the center of Tver with the text “Fuck the War.” In September 2022, he was detained by the Federal Security Service. FSB officers planted Molotov cocktails in Ivan’s apartment and tortured the activist in an attempt to pressurize him to confess to preparing the arson of a military enlistment office.
At the end of May, anarchist Alexey Rozhkov was illegally extradited from Kyrgyzstan to Russia. Without observing the procedures under Kyrgyz law and international norms, officers from the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security kidnapped Alexey and took him to the Russian Federation, where he was detained by FSB officers. The former threatened Alexei with torture, and the FSB put those threats into action — the young man told us that he had been tasered.
Now, as this statement is being published, we still cannot fully predict the development of events around the “Wagner rebellion” in a relatively long-term view. But we can definitely expect two seemingly opposite trends: first, increased repression against ordinary citizens, not only by state security forces, and second, simultaneously, an increase in chaos, when the opposing sides leave people facing the problems that they themselves created.
Dear friends, welcome to our latest update!
This is long overdue. As usual, we start with (relatively) good news. Krasnoyarsk anarchists Danil Ivanov and Ilya Vinogradov were given 5 and 3.5 years probational sentences respectively. They were accused of ”robbery”, for paying a visit to a former comrade who had been seen hanging out with Nazis. Congratulations to Danil and Ilya for dodging prison!
On 31 May the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Igor Paskar to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of “vandalism” and “terrorism”. He was found guilty of burning a Z-banner [a pro-war symbol] and the symbolic firebombing of the FSB [Federal Security Service] building in Krasnodar. The day before his sentencing, Igor gave his final statement in court. Here is a translation of his speech:
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the first anti-authoritarian international, international meetings are being prepared in the Swiss Jura mountains. They will take place from July 19 to 23, 2023.
You may read the full information on the website.
As part of the gathering, we would like to announce two events, organised by Autonomous Action and Anarchist Black Cross – Moscow.
Supporting anarchist and anti-war prisoners in Russia
On May 29, anti-war activist Alexey Rozhkov, who had fled from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, was extending his temporary registration in his host country. And the very next day, early in the morning, security forces broke into his home. On June 7, lawyer Kamil Isabekov visited Alexey Rozhkov in a temporary detention center in the suburbs of Yekaterinburg (the largest city in the Urals) to find out the circumstances of his transfer to Russia. Anti-war human rights initiative Solidarity Zone wrote about it.
18-year-old Mikhail Lazakovich from Tver, was detained on May 9 on suspicion of setting fire to a military recruitment center in Likhoslavl, 50 km from Tver. On the advice of his appointed lawyer, the young man did not deny his involvement in the arson. However, instead of the promised mitigation of punishment, the charge was reclassified from "attempted damage to property" to "an act of terrorism".
After being charged under the "terrorist" article (Part 1 of Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code), Mikhail refused to testify and plead guilty of terrorism.
June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...
Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...