Activists held a picket in Yerevan in support of Russian prisoners.
Several activists held a picket near the Russian Embassy in Yerevan in support of individuals they consider political prisoners.
As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," St. Petersburg activist Alexander Sherchenkov has repeatedly held pickets in front of the Russian Embassy in Yerevan demanding the release of prisoners in Russia whose persecution he considers unjust. For example, on March 16, he held a solo picket demanding the release of Ruslan Sidiki, who complained of torture after his arrest.
Alexander Sherchenkov is an activist and anarchist who flew to Yerevan from St. Petersburg in June 2022 after facing the risk of criminal prosecution for discrediting the army. This risk was related to Sherchenkov's repeated appearances at protests with a placard containing a pacifist slogan, the Russian-language publication Lava Media reported on December 24, 2024.
Activists held a picket on March 21 near the Russian embassy in Yerevan demanding the release of people they consider political prisoners in Russia, RusNews reports.
Among those the protest was dedicated to were former Khabarovsk Krai Governor Sergei Furgal and mathematician Azat Miftakhov, who turned 33 on the day of the picket, the publication writes.
Azat Miftakhov is a former graduate student in the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. In September 2023, he was released from a prison colony where he served time on hooliganism charges and was arrested on charges of justifying terrorism. According to investigators, while watching television with other prisoners, Miftakhov spoke favorably of the actions of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who carried out an explosion in the FSB building for the Arkhangelsk region in the fall of 2018. In March 2024, Miftakhov was sentenced to four years in prison, Kommersant reported.
Activists also held posters with slogans criticizing the Russian government and judicial system, the Activatica project (included in the register of foreign agents) reported on its Telegram channel.
According to publications, at least four people took part in the picket: two men, including Alexander Sherchenkov, and two women.
As a reminder, in February 2023, people from Russia held a protest in Yerevan against the sentence of Khabarovsk Krai Governor Sergei Furgal, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
At the end of February 2022, after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the flow of people leaving Russia increased. Armenia became one of the destination countries, according to the Caucasian Knot report "Why did Russians go to Armenia?".
An increase in the number of Russian citizens traveling to Armenia was also recorded in September-October 2022, after the announcement of mobilization in Russia. In the first 10 months of 2022, 1.4 million people arrived in Armenia, and almost half of them were Russian citizens.
Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/421808
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