UPDATED: Alexei Navalny detained in Moscow, Anti-Putin activist Ruslan Shaveddinov forcibly sent to Arctic
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Police in Moscow have again detained Alexei Navalny, the most prominent foe of President Vladimir Putin and the governing United Russia party.
Navalny has been jailed repeatedly in recent years for organizing or participating in unsanctioned protests. His Foundation for Fighting Corruption organization has produced reports alleging corruption by top figures including Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.
Navalny was detained when police forced their way into his organization’s office Thursday, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. There is no immediate information on charges against him.
Earlier, Navalny said that one of his allies had been forcibly conscripted and sent to serve at a remote Arctic base, in a move his supporters said amounted to kidnapping.
Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, went missing Monday after police broke into his Moscow flat and his phone’s SIM card was disabled.
He resurfaced Tuesday at a secret air defence base on the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Navalny said.
Separating the Barents and Kara seas, the Novaya Zemlya islands were used by the Soviet Union to conduct nuclear tests.
“He has been unlawfully deprived of freedom,” said Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s top opponent, in a blog post, calling the 23-year-old a “political prisoner”.
The Russian military insisted that Shaveddinov had been dodging the draft for a long time.
Russian men are eligible for conscription between the ages of 18 and 27 and serve one year’s military service. However, many find ways to avoid this in a corrupt, flawed system.
