In a recent incident in the village of Taitsy, located in the Leningrad Region, local police detained a group of 14 people who had gathered for a home antiwar exhibition. The detainees included several artists and activists, among them Yulia Gornova, Vitaly Ioffe, Tatiana Sichkareva, Elina Kozich, Nina Ryabushkina, Marianna Khanukova, Ekaterina Statsenko, and SOTA journalist Vlada Makeichik. Reports linking the events to the Telegram channel SOTA were cited by Kommersant for context and timing.
According to the Telegram channel, the detentions began with the arrest of Gornova and Ioffe under the pretext of a routine document check. The remaining participants reportedly left the apartment through a window as police moved to detain them outside the residence. All fourteen individuals were subsequently taken to the Gatchina Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Leningrad Region for processing and questioning. The channel SOTAVision later suggested that the detainees could face charges related to theft, while also noting that the exhibition featured works by St. Petersburg artists that were presented as antiwar statements.
In a related development, a separate legal case in another region drew attention to ongoing tensions around antiwar expression. Municipal deputy Oleg Nepein, affiliated with the Communist Party, was placed on a wanted list by a Saratov court in connection with a case involving the spread of false information about the Russian Armed Forces. Reports indicated that Nepein fled the courtroom city after the proceedings began, highlighting broader concerns about restrictions on dissent and information sharing in the current environment. Reports on these events have circulated through various channels, underscoring a climate in which antiwar voices face swift legal and bureaucratic pushback. These cases together illustrate a pattern in which artists, journalists, and local officials who raise critical perspectives can encounter serious state scrutiny and legal peril, regardless of the setting or the scale of the activity involved. (Kommersant) (SOTA) (SOTAVision)”