The investigation into the case of ex-director of Open Russia Andrei Pivovarov has ended

The former director of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, was finally charged with carrying out the activities of an “undesirable organization” (Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code). This is reported by the telegram channel “Team Pivovarov”.

The politician is charged with 30 posts and one repost on Facebook. The charge was brought under the old version of the article on the "undesirable organization", the maximum punishment for it is six years in prison.

The initiation of a criminal case against Pivovarov became known on May 31. On that day, the oppositionist was detained in St. Petersburg, when he went on vacation abroad, went through passport control at the airport, and then boarded an international flight.

“The plane, in which Andrey Pivovarov was, was actually deployed on the runway in order to remove it from the side,” wrote Tatyana Usmanova, former coordinator of Open Russia. After that, Pivovarov was taken to Krasnodar, where on June 2 the court sent him to a pre-trial detention center.

21:05 Lawyer Sergei Badamshin said that the investigation also seized Pivovarov's property against the fine that the court can sentence: “[They seized] the car and the apartment. And two more “foreign” apartments: one of which does not exist at all, and the second was sold almost in childhood.”

On October 28 , the Investigative Committee announced that the prosecutor's office had approved the indictment in Pivovarov's case, and that the materials would be submitted to the court.

According to the investigation, from December 2019 to May 2021, Pivovarov led a foreign non-governmental organization whose activities were recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation. During this period, the defendant repeatedly posted in the public domain information of a campaigning nature in support of this organization.

At the same time, the person involved was repeatedly brought to administrative responsibility for participating in the activities of a foreign non-governmental organization. In July this year, he was detained while trying to escape from the preliminary investigation outside the country.

• On May 27, the Open Russia Council announced the liquidation of the organization in order to protect its supporters from criminal prosecution. The decision is related to amendments to the law on “undesirable organizations” (Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code).
• In April 2017, the Prosecutor General's Office declared several organizations associated with businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, registered in the UK and the USA, as "undesirable". Despite the fact that the Russian movement was not banned, its participants continued to be persecuted. On March 30, 2019, Open Russia declared self-liquidation for security reasons.