Pro-government blogger Ilya Remeslo was detained in St. Petersburg on criminal charges of spreading “fakes” about the military (Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code), TASS reported, citing law enforcement sources and lawyer Sergei Badamshin. “They are taking him to Moscow,” the lawyer wrote on his Telegram channel “V Lager.”
What exactly Remeslo is being charged with is not yet known. In March, the blogger published a post titled “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin,” in which he criticized the president for the war in Ukraine, damage to the economy, censorship, and suppression of the opposition. After that, he was hospitalized in St. Petersburg Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 for a month, Fontanka and other outlets reported.
Remeslo, a lawyer who for a long time positioned himself as a “fighter against the opposition” and wrote denunciations of Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation, gave an interview to Ksenia Sobchak after his release, in which he discussed his hospitalization and change in political stance. The blogger claimed that he was “treated” with lithium and was not given a diagnosis.
The day before his arrest, on July 16, Remeslo wrote on his Telegram channel that “everything is going according to plan, toward a change of the old leadership of the Russian Federation this year.” Earlier, after leaving the hospital, he did not rule out that “harsh criticism of top state officials has its price,” but said he did not regret what he had said.