On Tuesday, a Moscow court ordered the arrest in absentia of Boris Akunin, a bestselling Russian language writer who wrote about the Russian army.
The 67-year-old was charged in December of last year after expressing his support for Kyiv in a phone call with Russian pranksters impersonating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Akunin, who has been abroad since 2014, will be detained for two months if he is extradited or returns to Russia, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled.
Grigory Chkhartishvili, a Georgian-born writer noted for his historical detective novels, goes by the pen name Akunin.
Boris Akunin has always been a Kremlin opponent, and he called Moscow’s assault on Ukraine absurd shortly after it began in February 2022.
He had already been designated a ‘foreign agent’ by Russia in January, a loaded phrase used by the Kremlin to describe those it regards as traitors and state adversaries.
Russia made disparaging its troops illegal weeks after launching its war on Ukraine and thousands of the conflict opponents have been arrested since then.
Many renowned cultural figures have fled Russia since it began its military incursion in Ukraine, and those who remain suffer stringent control.
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