Russian blogger's arrest highlights Kremlin dissent crackdown

A Russian court has detained "military correspondent" Igor Guzenko for two months. He manages the "Thirteenth" channel on Telegram. The reason for his detention is resisting police. Guzenko had previously written about "traitors in the Kremlin" and criticized the authorities.

According to a statement from the Stavropol Territory Court, the blogger is accused of "using violence" against an authority official, a charge that could result in a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Before his arrest, Guzenko had been placed on the federal wanted list for hooliganism, an offence that could result in a prison sentence of up to seven years. According to the Stavropol Territory Court, in 2022, the blogger broke the conditions of his house arrest by going to fight in Ukraine, subsequently adding him to the wanted list.

In early September, Guzenko published a series of emotional videos on his Telegram channel, "Thirteenth," in which he harshly criticized Vladimir Putin, the Russian government, and the military leadership.

This happened amid news of criminal proceedings for "discrediting" the army against his colleague—war correspondent Alexander Sladkov. Guzenko accused Putin of not starting a full-scale war in 2014, claiming it led to the current crisis in Ukraine.

He expressed frustration, saying that if an elderly man had not backed down and had fought with integrity in 2014, this chaos could have been avoided, and countless young men wouldn’t have lost their lives. Now, they find themselves as captives, facing death.

Guzenko also expressed the belief that Russia is led by traitors who currently "sit in the Kremlin."

He emphasized that the authorities persecute those they dislike, citing Igor Girkin (Strelkov) as an example, who was convicted in Russia for extremism. Girkin was a former commander of separatist formations in Donbas, who initiated the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by the court in The Hague.

In early October, Guzenko complained that the Russian army fighting in Ukraine did not have enough missiles to conduct active combat operations. He attributed this to Kyiv's attacks on Russian arsenals.

"Thirteenth" was detained on October 5th in the central square of Novopavlovsk in the Stavropol Territory during the city's holiday celebrations. According to the Baza channel, a "packet with an unknown substance" was found in the blogger's pocket. Guzenko refused to undergo a medical examination.

Meanwhile, the Mash channel reported that the reason for the arrest was a fight with a police officer. The incident was triggered by the mask the blogger was wearing, which supposedly "frightened bystanders."

In a short video that the blogger posted on his channel immediately after the arrest, he complained about the use of force by law enforcement officers against him.