The court has sent a Kamchatka activist to pre-trial detention over charges of participation in an “extremist” organisation.

The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court has placed Vasilya Vershinina, an activist with the “Council of the Kamchatka Territory” movement, in a pre-trial detention facility (SIZO). She is accused of participating in the activities of an “extremist” organisation (Part 2, Article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code). This was reported by the court’s press service.

Yesterday, following searches carried out at the homes of seven Kamchatka activists—including Vershinina—she was taken to a temporary detention facility (IVS). The other six detained activists were released after questioning by the FSB.

The investigation contends that from 2021 to the present, Vershinina participated in the activities of the “Volya” party, which was founded by conspiracy theorist Svetlana Lada-Rus. According to the prosecution, Vershinina did so “on behalf of the officially unregistered organisations ‘People’s Union for the Rebirth of Russia’ and its subdivision—the ‘Council of the Kamchatka Territory.’”

According to investigators, the activist “regularly conducted discussions with the goal of promoting the banned political organisation, recruited others into its activities by distributing leaflets and literature, and created various online communities.”

The investigator petitioned for Vershinina to be transferred to a pre-trial detention facility. The court claims that before the search, Vershinina attempted to destroy items and documents that could serve as evidence in the case.

Supporters of Svetlana Lada-Rus and associates of the arrested Vershinina stated that the case against the activist is politically motivated.

“The main reason for Vasilya’s detention and the fabrication of administrative and criminal cases against her—first by the Interior Ministry, now by the FSB—is an order from the Kremlin: to silence her and stop her blogging activity. Her past involvement, long ago—10 years ago—in the ‘Volya’ party is a formal pretext for the extremism charges. Naturally, like many women in her circle, she keeps books at home authored by Svetlana Mikhailovna Peunova [Lada-Rus]. Obviously, searches were conducted in their flats to find these books. Through these books, the FSB investigator is attempting to link Vasilya to the long-dissolved organisation and fabricate a case for extremist activity,” activists noted.

12 September—The Kamchatka Regional Court changed the pre-trial restrictions for teacher and Council of the Kamchatka Territory activist Vasilya Vershinina from detention to house arrest, her associates reported.

• Before the single voting day, Vasilya Vershinina took part in a campaign to collect signatures for the cancellation of the Kamchatka governor elections. She joined demands to bar incumbent governor Vladimir Solodov from running for re-election, to abolish the municipal filter, and to cancel this year’s governor elections as they were seen as uncompetitive.
• The FSB search warrant for Vershinina’s home states that security forces consider the “Council of the Kamchatka Territory” to be a subdivision of Svetlana Lada-Rus’s organisation, “People’s Union for the Rebirth of Russia.” According to the FSB, the “Union” continues the activities of the “Volya” party.
• In 2016, “Volya” was declared “extremist” at the request of the Ministry of Justice, due to its leaflet “Appeal to Russian Army Servicemen”—which was against the war with Ukraine and called for a vote of no confidence in Putin.