The Ministry of Internal Affairs has added Andrei Sidelnikov, a politician living in London, to the wanted list, Mediazona has discovered.
A case was opened against Sidelnikov for calls for terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). May 31 court in Moscow in absentia arrested him under this article.
Russian security forces did not publicly announce the reasons for the persecution. TASS, citing sources, linked the case to the speech of 48-year-old Sidelnikov at the “Congress of People’s Deputies,” which was organized in Warsaw in November 2023 by ex-State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev.
Sidelnikov then spoke about the presidential elections in Russia in March 2024 and proposed attacking several of them with drones before the opening of polling stations.
“For the Russian opposition [on election days] <…> there is only one position — to announce a levy for the purchase of drones and launch these drones at polling stations on voting day,” he suggested. — <…> Do polling stations usually open at eight in the morning according to the law? Therefore, at six or seven in the morning, take and send these drones to a number of polling stations. And then, when this bacchanalia with the so-called elections begins, rumors will spread throughout the country and we will not see these queues that the authorities will artificially try to create.”
Two photographs of Sidelnikov were indicated in the search database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs — in one he appears on the air of the Ukrainian channel FreeDom, and in the other he sits against the backdrop of a white-blue-white flag in a T-shirt “Russian warship, [go fuck yourself].”
Andrei Sidelnikov, the son of Soviet hockey player Alexander Sidelnikov, was an assistant State Duma deputy and a member of the Liberal Russia party, which was financed by Boris Berezovsky after emigrating to London.
Sidelnikov left Russia for the UK in 2007. He said that FSB officers then removed him from the flight and forbade him to leave the country, after which he fled through Belarus and Ukraine and sought asylum in London. In addition to the “Congress of People’s Deputies,” Sidelnikov also participates in Garry Kasparov’s “Free Russia Forum” and goes live on Ponomarev’s “Morning of February” YouTube channel.
In October 2023, the Ministry of Justice added Sidelnikov to the register of “foreign agents.”
Sidelnikov introduces himself as “the leader of the international movement “Speak Louder!”.” In their Facebook group they publish anti-war posts and links to Sidelnikov’s own YouTube channel — including a series of videos “Drinking on Skype” and “Ay, Swamp!!! A selection of kringes,” which contains “a selection of fierce kringes from Mordor.” There are no mentions of other public participants in the movement in the group.