Russia issues arrest warrant for critic Boris Akun

2024-02-06 11:50:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

A Moscow court has issued an arrest warrant for prominent Russian writer Boris Akunin, who has been accused of calling for "terrorism" and spreading "false information" about the Russian military.

Akunin is otherwise known as Grigory Chkhartishvili.

"Chkhartishvili has been granted a preventive measure of detention for a period of two months from the moment of his detention in Russia or extradition," the Basmanny court said on February 6.

Last month, Russia's Interior Ministry placed Akunin as a wanted person for suspected criminal activity, although no specific charges were named.

Akunin, 67, who currently lives in London after fleeing Russia in 2014, has been an outspoken critic of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

Earlier this month, Russia's Ministry of Justice declared Akun a "foreign agent," in a widely applied punitive list targeting regime critics.

Last month, Russia's financial monitoring service, Rosfinmonitoring, added Akunin to its list of "terrorists and extremists" without explanation, but media reports said it had launched an investigation into Akunin over allegations of discrediting the Russian armed forces.

The move comes less than a week after one of Russia's largest book publishers, and the country's largest chain of bookstores, announced it had dropped writer Akunin and another writer, Dmitry Bykov, due to their pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian comments.

In October, all Russian theaters showing plays based on Akunin's works removed his name from their posters.

Akunin was among dozens of Russian writers who openly condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, shortly after the start of the Russian invasion, he wrote on Facebook that "a terrible new era has begun" in Russia.

"Until the last moment, I could not believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would start this absurd war, and I was wrong. I always believed that sanity would win in the end, and I was wrong. Madness won," he wrote. Akunin./REL