Moscow’s Savyolovsky District Court has ordered the arrest in absentia of libertarian politician and SVTV founder Mikhail Svetov in a criminal case over alleged violations of requirements imposed on “foreign agents”. Mediazona drew attention to the ruling.
There had been no prior public reports that this specific criminal case had been opened against Svetov. He was added to Russia’s “foreign agents” register in November 2022. Since then, he has been fined under the administrative article used against people on the register at least five times.
Last week, the same register was expanded to include the unregistered Libertarian Party of Russia.
Earlier, in 2023, Svetov was placed on Russia’s federal wanted list. At the time, the state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported that he had been charged with rehabilitating Nazism over a song about Stepan Bandera.
Svetov himself said that in 2021 supporters of Vladislav Pozdnyakov’s group “Male State” had filed complaints against him. According to him, the trigger was his performance of the song “Ah, Bandero, ukrainsky apostol!”.
Svetov left Russia in 2021 after a search of his home in connection with a lewd acts case opened back in 2019 over a photograph of his former girlfriend on Instagram, and after serving nine days of administrative arrest under a protocol accusing him of organizing a rally in support of Alexei Navalny.