The 67-year-old was charged in December with ‘justifying terrorism’ after expressing help for Ukraine in a prank name made to him.
A Moscow court docket has ordered the arrest in absentia of best-selling detective author Boris Akunin as a part of an ongoing crackdown on critics of its war in Ukraine.
Moscow’s Basmanny District Courtroom ordered the arrest of Akunin, the pen title of Grigory Chkhartishvili, on Tuesday.
The 67-year-old was charged in December with “justifying terrorism” after expressing help for Ukraine in a prank name staged by pro-Kremlin activists.
Akunin, who presently resides in London, is to be detained and brought into custody if he units foot in Russia.
Prank name
The pranksters, generally known as Vovan and Lexus, posed as Ukrainian officers of their name final December, certainly one of them pretending to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A felony case was opened towards Akunin for “discrediting the military” — particularly for “justifying terrorism” and spreading “pretend information” in regards to the Russian army.
Moscow made disparagement of its army unlawful weeks after launching its full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022, and has detained hundreds of individuals for criticising the warfare.
Many distinguished cultural figures have since fled the nation.
Akunin, finest recognized for his historic detective novels, is certainly one of Russia’s most generally learn up to date authors.
A protracted-standing critic of the Kremlin, he denounced Moscow’s assault on Ukraine as “absurd” shortly after the offensive started in February 2022.
Previous to this, he had already been labelled a “international agent” by Moscow.
Considered one of Russia’s main publishers, AST, responded by asserting it was suspending the printing and sale of Akunin’s books.
In a web-based assertion, Akunin described his writer’s transfer as “an essential milestone”, saying that Russian writers had not been accused of terrorism since Soviet chief Josef Stalin’s purges.
