Press Release, 23.03.2023

Photo: Artist Yelena Osipova at the opening of her exhibition in the office of the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Roman Plugin, head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, said that the paintings by the artist Yelena Osipova, seized from the exhibition “PEACEful Art Protest” in the Yabloko office in February, would be returned in early May. This was stated in his response to a question from Boris Vishnevsky, MP of the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, at a meeting of the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, 28 March.

“Just no later than the beginning of May, they [the paintings] will be returned. I give you a guarantee. Safe and sound,” Plugin said.

Earlier, Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the St.Petersburg parliament, addressed the head of the city police with a demand to return the paintings.

It should be noted that a peacemaking exhibition by well-known St. Petersburg artist and activist Yelena Osipova opened at the Yabloko office on Tuesday, 31 January. It was planned that Osipova’s paintings would be on display until 24 February. However, the very next day, the police confiscated the artworks from the Yabloko office.

On 1 February, police officers came to the Yabloko office, cordoned off the premises and said that they had received a call about an alleged bomb threat. Police officers did not find any explosive objects in the office, but they seized 19 Yelena Osipova’s artworks, which she provided to Yabloko for an exhibition which opened on 31 January. The Yabloko office was blocked for five hours, police did not allow Yabloko activists to return to their working places and prepare documents for the candidates nominated by Yabloko in the by-elections of municipal deputies for submission to the electoral commissions.

Now the paintings are being examined. Investigators are checking them for signs of deliberately false information about the Armed Forces of the RF, which could be contained in the “text inscriptions” of the paintings. The Public Prosecutor’s office previously reported in response to the Yabloko deputies’ appeal that the examination would last until August.

“I believe that the very seizure of Yelena Osipova’s paintings was unreasonable. If the police officers thought that the paintings contained texts with “fake information” about the Armed Forces of the RF, then they could take photos of these paintings. Moreover, some of the confiscated paintings do not contain textual information at all,” Alexander Shishlov said.

BORIS VISHNEVSKY

is Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko Party, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and Bureau, and an MP of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg

ALEXANDER SHISHLOV

is head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party, and Chairman of the Yabloko branch in St.Petersburg