Turkey deported 24-year-old anti-war activist Ariadna Litvinova to Russia on July 4, and she was detained upon arrival at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, according to the human rights project Prison Lawyer and the outlet Vot Tak. Lawyers have lost contact with her and believe she is being taken to St. Petersburg to be placed in a pre-trial detention center.
Litvinova is charged under Article 280.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, which criminalizes repeated “discrediting” of the military. The charge stems from an action on February 24, 2025, when she wrote “Murderers,” “Peace to Ukraine,” and “Freedom for political prisoners” on banners of a pro-war photo exhibition at the Arch of the General Staff in St. Petersburg. Investigators estimated the damage from the inscriptions at 135,536 rubles.
Litvinova was initially detained and fined 50,000 rubles under an administrative charge of “discrediting” the military, then sent to a pre-trial detention center on a criminal vandalism case. In March 2025, her preventive measure was changed to a ban on certain actions. After her release, she left Russia for Turkey, where her father lives. In September 2025, the human rights project Kovcheg reported a previous attempt by Turkey to deport a Russian citizen who was being persecuted for an online comment; rights activists managed to secure his removal to a third country. In July 2024, Turkey handed over Yevgeny Serebryakov to Russia, who was accused of bombing a car carrying a GRU officer and his wife. Russian authorities classified that case as a terrorist attack, and Serebryakov was sentenced to 25 years in prison.