Алексей Рожков

English version  of article by Novaya Gazeta Europe on political prisoner Alexey Rozhkov. 

On 11 March 2022, at around 5am, Alexey Rozhkov left his house in the city of Beryozovsky in the Urals. He took three bottles of beer that he had made into Molotov cocktails, and went to the local military recruitment office.

Rozhkov carried out the third known arson attack on a military enlistment office following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. He committed the act on March 11, 2022, as a form of protest and a way to draw attention to the situation. In an interview Ivan Astashin conducted with Alexey in December 2022 — when he had managed to flee to Kyrgyzstan — the anarchist explained his motivation:

In night between 16th and 17th of October in Bishkek, according to DOXA, unknown people kidnapped activist of Left Bloc, anarchist Lev Skoryakin. Lawyers do not know about his whereabouts. In Russia, Skoryakin is accused of ”hooliganism with weapons”, due to action against a FSB office in the South-West of Moscow with another activist of the Left Bloc Ruslan Abasov. Skoryakin and Abasov were holding banners and burning flares at the office.

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!