The investigation asked to arrest Viasna coordinator Bohdan Lytvyn in absentia. Mediazona found information about this on the website of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow.
The activist is accused of extremist organizations communities, rehabilitation of Nazism, dissemination of military “fakes”, public calls for activities directed against state security, creation of an NPO that infringes on the rights of citizens and calls for mass riots.
Litvin is outside Russia; in the summer of 2022 he was put on the wanted list. In the fall of the same year, the Ministry of Justice declared the activist a “foreign agent.”
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Viasna has called on supporters to take part in anti-war rallies, and in September 2022 to protest against the then-announced “partial mobilization.”
At the end of 2022, the movement was recognized as “extremist” in Russia. In June 2023, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow sent six defendants in the Vesna case to pre-trial detention — Yan Ksenzhepolsky, Evgeny Zateev, Valentin Khoroshenin, Vasily Neustroyev, Pavel Sinelnikov and Anna Arkhipova.