Mariupol residents threatened for submitting critical questions for Putin’s annual Direct Line

Law enforcement agencies in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine have threatened locals who submitted critical video messages to Vladimir Putin in the run-up to his annual televised phone-in event on Friday, according to Telegram news channel ASTRA.

Members of the public have been encouraged to submit their questions for Putin by making their own videos and uploading them to a website, marking a departure from previous call-ins, at which carefully vetted members of the public were lined up to pose their questions to Putin live.

Residents who recorded video messages for Putin complaining about being left homeless after their houses were destroyed in the war, were summoned to meet with members of the security services who warned them that they had violated the law on protests, ASTRA reported.

Mariupol resident Anna Husevska was even told that her video constituted “extremism” and that the Interior Ministry had flagged her name in its database, meaning that she would always face interrogation whenever she travels within Russia.

Husevska said that Mariupol residents had effectively been blocked from submitting their questions to Putin altogether this year. “The Donbas post office has been closed since 19 November, and local operators have been delaying SMS registration on the Direct Line website, making it impossible to send video messages.”

“The Interior Ministry began summoning people recording video messages for the direct line to testify against me, alleging that I was organising an illegal protest,” Husevska told ASTRA.

The yearly Direct Line call-in show sees Putin answer scores of questions from carefully vetted members of the public, combined with an annual press conference with invited members of the Russian and international press corps.