Anti-Putin activist Ruslan Shaveddinov 'forcibly conscripted' and sent to Arctic.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said that one of his allies had been forcibly conscripted and sent to serve at a remote Arctic base, in a move his supporters said amounted to kidnapping.
Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, went missing Monday after police broke into his Moscow flat and his phone’s SIM card was disabled.
He resurfaced Tuesday at a secret air defence base on the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Navalny said.
Separating the Barents and Kara seas, the Novaya Zemlya islands were used by the Soviet Union to conduct nuclear tests.
“Ruslan Shaveddinov has been kidnapped by the FSB (security service) and exiled to Novaya Zemlya,” said the sign, according to photographs released by Navalny’s allies.
Navalny said Shaveddinov has a medical condition that disqualifies him for military service but that he was forcibly drafted and sent to the Arctic base without basic training. »