Anarchist Black Cross

The defendant in the “Network” case, political prisoner Victor Filinkov keeps gaining victories against prison apparatus. 

Hi everyone! Today is Sunday, August 21 and we continue our podcast “Trends of order and chaos”. This is the episode 68. What interested us in the past week?

On June 14 2022, Igor Paskar painted his face in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and threw a Molotov cocktail at the door of the central entrance of the FSB headquarters of Krasnodar region, Russia. With this gesture, he protested against the invasion of Ukraine. Igor did not try to leave afterwards. In his own words, it was a conscious political action.

Autonomous Action is an organisation of anarchists and libertarian communists, founded in year 2002. Our goal is to create basis for a new culture, based on self-organisation, radical resistance against capitalism, fascism, militarism, sexism, homophobia and any other forms of discrimination. We are currently working to restore libertarian and anarchist movement in Russia, after a period of stagnation and repressions.

Hello! It’s Sunday,  July 24 and we continue our podcast “Trends of order and chaos”. This is episode 64. Here are the top stories on past week’s agenda.  

Hello! It's Sunday, July 10, and we carry on with our podcast, Trends of Order and Chaos. This is episode 62. Here are the top stories on last week's agenda.

6th of March, during anti-war meeting, Anton Zhuchkov and his friend Vladimir Sergeev were arrested in the center of Moscow, in Pushkin square.

They was searched, and police found two Molotov cocktails in the backpack of Sergeev. But instead of a police station, they were both sent to Sklifosovskiy emergency hospital. In police wan, Anton and Sergey attempted to commit a suicide, by taking lethal doses of methadone.

Updates to list of anti-war prisoners of Anarchist Black Cross Moscow.

Priest of Russian orthodox church Ioann has been remanded, charged with spreading ”fake news” about Russian army, after he preached that ”peacemeakers go to heaven”, and ”aggressors who have attacked the neighbouring people will go to a hell, which they have chosen themselves”.

Send him a Tolstoyan greeting to address

30 year old Denis Serdyuk, suspected of an arson attack against amilitary call-up center in Volgograd, is being held in remand prison #1 of his town. He is being charged with ”destruction of property” and ”hooliganism”, and may be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Vladimir Sergeev and Anton Zhuchkov were arrested in an anti-war action on the 6th of March 2022. Before his arrest Vladimir worked in a factory. Vladimir did not go to demonstrations before the war began. After the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24, 2022, Vladimir's attitude toward the Russian state became even worse.

These prisoners have been jailed due to anti-war protests or opinions. They have a wide variety of positions, but all of them are against the Russian attack against Ukraine. There are more prisoners than whom we know the addresses. This list was compiled by Ivan Astashin. 

Please translate your letters to Russian for example with Google translate, as currently letters in other languages except Russian are very seldom accepted in Russian prisons. 

Possibilities to protest in Russia were already significantly limited before the pandemic, and during the last two years, from March 2020 to Russian attack to Ukraine, street demonstrations have been banned with the pretext of the Covid Pandemic. People were demonstrating persecutions against opposition leader Alexey Navalnyi, and in few other cases, but these ended in massive arrests.

War in Ukraine has already increased the level of repressions in Russia, but there are not yet any new criminal proceedings against anarchist or anti-fascist activists. In this new exceptional situation, we are channeling some of our resources to humanitarian needs which go beyond our usual narrow focus of supporting repressed anarchists and anti-fascists. 

In picture: action of Left Bloc activists against FSB.

On Thursday, February 10, a Russian court handed down sentences for terrorism to three teenagers from the Siberian town of Kansk. The boys were arrested in the summer of 2020 for posting leaflets with political slogans on the local FSB building. After searching their phones and uncovering a “plot” to blow up a virtual rendering of an FSB building in the video game Minecraft, investigators charged the teens with making explosives and training to participate in terrorist activities.

The sentence in the case of the Kansk teenagers will be given on Thursday, the 10th of February 2022 at 3PM in Krasnoyarsk time (11 AM Moscow time, 8 AM GMT). Three anarchists from the Krasnoyarsk region are accused of “studying terrorism” and storing explosives. Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhayuulenko and Bogdan Andreev were arrested in the summer of 2020 for spreading leaflets that criticised the state, and for supporting political prisoners. At that time they were 14 years old.  

This time around there's both good news and bad news, so lets start with the good ones.

Maxim ”Hadad” Smolnikov released from remand in custody

The family of Maksim Smolnikov needs financial support to cover lawyer costs and the transfer to a pre-trial detention center. If you want to help, please transfer money to the ABC Moscow PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net) or if you are in Russia directly to the family account:  4274320068140352.

Ilya Romanov needs support for rehabilitation

Ilya Romanov has been an activist in the anarchist movement since 1987. He was sentenced to prison twice, for 10 years in Ukraine in 00’s and 7 years in Russia in the last decade. In 2019 he almost died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. Due to the delay in the medical intervention, he lost the capacity to move the right side of his body. 

For over three months, people in Belarus have been fighting against the authoritarian regime. In 26 years, dictator Lukashenko has built a system aimed at suppressing any political life. The coronavirus and a number of economic problems have greatly changed what is happening in the country. In a few months, Belarusians have learned to self-organize. The presidential elections provoked a wave of the largest protest in the country's history! But the tyrant does not want to give up his throne. At least 5 people were killed (some died under strange circumstances).

Azerbaijani anarchist Giyas Ibrahimov was detained by security services for alleged anti-war statements yesterday.

In the now-deleted live video he posted on his social media account,  Ibrahimov broadcasted security forces entering his flat in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku and refusing to tell him why he was being detained.