In the evening of December 23, police stormed into the apartment of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) project manager Ruslan Shaveddinov. At the same time, mobile operator Yota illegally disabled Shaveddinov’s SIM card to prevent him from calling his lawyer and informing him about the situation. Policemen sawed out the apartment door and rummaged through it, stealing a TV in the process.

After that, Shaveddinov was taken away. At first, the police lied that he was being interrogated by the Investigative Committee, but the latter denied this. FBK lawyers found out that Shaveddinov was first delivered to the Moscow city army rallying point and then hastily taken from there in an unknown direction.

There was no information about Shaveddinov’s whereabouts for almost an entire day. On the morning of December 24, FBK lawyers reported him missing to the police. After that, a video featuring Ruslan appeared on Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. In it, Shaveddinov was being escorted out of a plane by armed men. As it turned out later, Ruslan was taken to Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic archipelago with practically no civilian population and several military bases.

Shaveddinov was supposedly sent to the army for military service. He appealed against the decision to recruit him earlier in December and thus could not be called up without a court’s decision. Coincidentally, the court rejected his appeal on the same day as he was taken away.

It is obvious that Putin’s regime is now using military service as a weapon of political persecution. Ruslan Shaveddinov was practically kidnapped and imprisoned under the pretense of “serving his Motherland”.