Investigative prison, Penza. Source: OVD-Info. Since October 2017, nine people have arrested as part of “The Network” case, which has seen Russian anti-fascists and anarchists in St Petersburg and Penza detained on terrorism charges. According to Federal Security Service (FSB) investigators, all the arrested men were members of an organisation that planned to provoke the “popular masses for further destabilisation of the political climate in the country” during the Russian presidential elections and FIFA World Cup. Cells of the organisation were allegedly operating in Moscow, St Petersburg, Penza and Belarus.
But as has become clear, this case has a history that goes back to spring 2017. Sofiko Aridzhanova, a Moscow-based journalist and anarchist, recently revealed that FSB officers informally interrogated her in February last year. And on 23 May 2018, Viktoria Frolova, a friend of the suspects in Penza, was detained at the Russian-Ukrainian border. Frolova was forced to give a testimony against her acquaintances from Penza. Prior to that, Frolova’s boyfriend Alexey Poltavets told OVD-Info how he was arrested, beaten up and tortured by FSB officers in Penza. According to Poltavets, he is referred to as “Boris” in the FSB’s case files for the “Network” case.
Here, he tells how he was detained and tortured in March 2017.
