Criticizing Russia's war on Ukraine has gotten a former Russian interior ministry captain arrested for sharing dissent against the Vladimir Putin-ordered invasion.
Sergei Klokov, 37, who previously hailed from Ukraine, was arrested in Moscow for allegedly spreading fake warfare news, Russian media Meduza reported this week.
He has been confined to pre-trial detention for two months after it was found he was condemning Russian troops in Ukraine in a personal phone call. This is the seventh reported arrest under the new Criminal Code of Conduct article passed amid the Russian invasion this March.
Klokov, who faces 5-10 years in prison when convicted, was arrested for disseminating "inaccurate information about the actions of the Russian military" through phone calls after a March 16 raid on his home and devices, according to the report.
"It was 11 p.m., we were getting ready for bed, the children were already asleep," Klokov's mother, Lyudmila Klokova, told Meduza. "The police rang at the door – they showed the certificates and said that [they should conduct] a search at our place. He was seen off until 4 in the morning, then they went to our dacha, but they didn't find anything. What they were looking for is unclear. The son never spoke anywhere, he just expressed his opinion to his friends."
His wife and mother assured Meduza the dissent was only expressed privately in phone calls and not shared publicly, or even privately on social media.
"I don't know where or how he was detained, but the front window of the car was broken, [Sergei's] jacket was torn, I saw this already at the trial," Lyudmila Klokova added to Meduza.
Klokov has no social media accounts, according to his wife, Tatyana.
"Probably blurted out something there that he was detained so quickly," she told Meduza. "He said that he was against this special operation, he said why shed blood if it was possible to come to an agreement. He said that it was bad that people were dying on both sides
"No one knows anything, not even the lawyer."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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