Vladimir Putin opponent tells court of life ‘exiled on an Arctic base’

A Russian opposition activist has described being forcibly conscripted and sent to a remote missile base in the Arctic.

Riot police carry away a protester in Moscow. More than 140 people were arrested on Thursday. Picture: AFP

A Russian opposition activist has described being forcibly conscripted and sent to a remote missile base in the Arctic as punishment for investigating alleged corruption involving President Putin’s inner circle.

Ruslan Shaveddinov, 23, was seized in December by FSB state security officers who broke down the door to his flat in Moscow. He was dispatched to an island on the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago without being allowed to contact family or friends beforehand.

“I was abducted from my own flat and sent into political exile,” Mr Shaveddinov told a court in Arkhangelsk, northern Russia, during an unsuccessful appeal against his deployment to the Arctic on Thursday.

He said doctors had ruled that he was unfit to serve in the military because of poor health. It is unusual for new recruits to be sent directly to military bases rather than a training centre.

A member of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s FBK anti-corruption group, Mr Shaveddinov has been involved in high-profile investigations into tycoons with links to the Kremlin, as well as Dmitry Medvedev, the former prime minister and president.

The activist said this week that the military base where he was serving had no running water or electricity, and food supplies were thrown from passing helicopters every six weeks.

“They chucked us sacks of tinned food and grains,” he said.

Mr Shaveddinov told the court that there were no landlines on the bases and soldiers were barred from having mobile phones: “I heard that there is a (coronavirus) epidemic in Moscow, where my mother and my loved ones live. I haven’t even been able to find out how they are.”

He was often woken by water dripping through the roof of the barracks and was forced to melt snow to wash himself. “I walk a few kilometres every couple of days to collect and drag back a 49-litre can of water,” he said. “I am deprived of electricity: we have a former tractor working a generator, which we refuel every couple of hours.”

Mr Shaveddinov said that the experience would not break him. “I won’t forget this and I won’t forgive it,” he said. “I have not been frightened off.”

However, the court ordered his return to the facility and maintained the ban on him having a phone. The southernmost point of the archipelago is 70 degrees north of the equator and was a nuclear bomb test site.

Russian men aged from 18 to 27, excluding those who are sick, are obliged to serve a year in the armed forces. The draft can be delayed by students, single fathers and carers. Many men avoid serving for legitimate reasons or by paying for fake medical reports.

Despite falling approval ratings, Mr Putin, 67, could be set to rule Russia for another 16 years after a recent referendum on constitutional reforms approved “resetting” his term limits.

More than 140 people were arrested in Moscow on Thursday night at a protest against the results of the referendum, which was marred by allegations of widespread vote-rigging. Riot police moved in after protesters chanting “Putin is a thief” began marching on the interior ministry.

Mr Putin is also facing a challenge in the far eastern Khabarovsk region, where tens of thousands of people rallied at the weekend to protest against the arrest of a nationalist governor. Sergei Furgal, 50, is accused of organising the murders of business rivals in 2004 and 2005. His supporters say that the charges are politically motivated. Smaller protests continued this week and another is expected on Saturday.

THE TIMES