In the Magadan region, they detained and tried to arrest an entrepreneur who supported Navalny

The Olsky District Court of the Magadan Region did not arrest businessman Vladimir Pushkov in the case of using violence against a police officer. He was detained in the morning local time and kept in court for about 9 hours. This was reported to OVD-Info by his brother Dmitry Pushkov.

The investigation petitioned for the placement of the entrepreneur in a pre-trial detention center. After the trial, an employee of the Investigative Committee handed Pushkov a written undertaking not to leave. The day before, he was detained and arrested for 48 hours in order to change the preventive measure.

Dmitry Pushkov said that the persecution of the entrepreneur began in the spring of 2017, when the brothers expressed a desire to open Navalny's headquarters in Magadan and wrote a post about this with a proposal to the locals to unite. About a week later, the Pushkovs, who own a wood products business, learned that a criminal case had been opened against them for illegal logging.

“They came to our house with searches, about 20 people,” says Dmitry Pushkov. “Then the whole forest was arrested and taken away. After two years of investigation, the investigation found no violations and returned the forest to us. When we went to pick up trees, it turned out that a huge amount of forest was not enough. Then the threats began, they told us that we should sign that as much as they confiscated from us, so much we accept. We say: “No, we will only write about the facts.” We were told that there would be problems.”

The case of the use of violence against a policeman appeared in the summer of 2018 during one of the trips for arrested trees. “Then a man in civilian clothes and in a civilian car blocked the road for us. We asked to remove the car and offered help, but he refused, it was clear that this was a provocation. I called the police and started tying the rope to the car. Then the man started yelling into the phone that a policeman was being attacked,” recalls the detainee’s brother.

A month later, a criminal case was opened against Vladimir Pushkov on the use of non-hazardous violence against a government official. According to the case file, the policeman's knees were scratched and his sleeve was torn. Dmitry Pushkov claims that they did not touch the policeman that day. He also found out that the man who blocked their way was one of the investigators in the case of the theft of the forest.

• Before the advent of criminal cases, Dmitry and Vladimir Pushkov often participated in the political life of the city. In addition to opening Navalny's headquarters, they acted as organizers of rallies for the resignation of the mayor of Magadan.