A new criminal case has been initiated against Bogdan Litvin, a defendant in the “Vesna” case who has left Russia.

The Investigative Committee for St Petersburg has opened a criminal case for participation in the activities of an extremist organisation (part 2, article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) against Bogdan Litvin, a defendant in the “Vesna” case. This was reported by Fontanka, citing an unnamed source.

According to the outlet, the basis for the new case was posts on the Telegram channel of the opposition youth movement “Vesna” from July 2023 to November 2024. By that time, “Vesna” had already been designated as an extremist organisation.

Litvin himself has been abroad for several years. In summer 2022, he was declared wanted, and in December 2023, the activist was arrested in absentia. In addition, he was entered into the Rosfinmonitoring register of “extremists and terrorists.”

It had previously been known that Litvin was charged under six articles: organisation of an extremist community (part 1, article 282.1 of the Criminal Code); public calls for activities aimed at undermining state security (part 3, article 280.4); creation of a non-profit organisation infringing on citizens’ rights (part 2, article 239); calls for mass disturbances (part 1.1, article 212); rehabilitation of Nazism (part 4, article 354.1); and dissemination of “fake news” about the Russian army (points “b” and “d,” part 2, article 207.3).

At present, six people remain in detention charged in the case against the youth movement “Vesna”: former activists from St Petersburg Yevgeny Zateyev and Valentin Khoroshenin, member of the St Petersburg regional council of the Yabloko party and local TIK representative from the party Vasily Neustreyev, activist from Tver (a city northwest of Moscow) Yan Ksenzhepolsky, as well as Pavel Sinelnikov and Anna Arkhipova.

All of them were detained after mass searches on 6 June 2023 and taken to Moscow. Two days later, a court placed the defendants in pretrial detention. The activists are facing several criminal charges, the same articles mentioned in Litvin’s case.

In June 2024, the case began to be heard by the St Petersburg City Court. In early July this year, Valentin Khoroshenin fully confessed and gave a statement. He said that it was “very evident that Vesna is an extremist community” and called the movement a “Navalny incubator” since many participants had connections with the Anti-Corruption Foundation structures.

• The youth movement “Vesna” was founded in 2013 in St Petersburg, before spreading to other regions of Russia. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the movement’s activists have been actively involved in anti-war protests and announced mass actions against “partial” mobilisation. In October 2022, the movement was added to the register of “foreign agents,” and in December a court upheld a claim recognising “Vesna” as an “extremist” organisation.
• There are 21 people charged in the “Vesna” case overall, some of whom were declared wanted in summer 2023. All defendants have been included in the official list of “terrorists and extremists.”