Press Release, 9.05.2022

Photo: Pavel Sychyov / Photo from social networks

The home of Pavel Sychyov, Yabloko candidate for the State Duma and a video blogger, was searched in Voronezh about 6 a.m.  The search was carried out within the framework of a criminal case on terrorism – false reports about the mining of a courthouse in Voronezh. The procedural status of Pavel Sychyov in the criminal case is a witness. However, all equipment was confiscated from the activist in spite of the fact that Sychyov had not been not involved in the criminal case.

The search was conducted about ten security officers, some of them in masks and with machine guns in their hands. Sychyov was taken for interrogation to the Centre for Combating Extremism. The police held the activist until the end of the Immortal Regiment memorial march in the city (the action conducted all over Russia annually since 2012 in memory of the victims of the Second World War, the participants march with portraits of their relatives killed in the war). According to the police, Sychyov could interfere with the march.

It should be noted that on 13 March, the security forces tried to get into Sychyov’s apartment, but there was no search. On 2 April, employees of the Centre for Combatting Extremism detained Pavel Sychyov allegedly in connection with “discrediting the armed forces” due to the repost of the video on social networks.