The former head of Navalny's Barnaul headquarters, Vadim Ostanin, was taken from the Rubtsovsk colony to Moscow. This was reported by activist Artem Sakharov, citing his lawyer .
Ostanin was detained at the end of 2021. At the end of July 2023, he was sentenced to nine years in a general regime penal colony under articles on organizing an extremist community (Part 1 of Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code) and on participation in a non-profit organization that infringes on the personality and rights of citizens (Part 3 of Article 239 of the Criminal Code). In September, the sentence was upheld by the Altai Regional Court.
“Vadim is probably also being prepared for a possible exchange,” Sakharov noted.
Earlier, several other political prisoners disappeared from the colonies. Human rights activist Oleg Orlov , former heads of Navalny's headquarters in Ufa and Tomsk Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva , as well as politician Ilya Yashin and 19-year-old Kevin Lik , disappeared "in an unknown direction." Artist Sasha Skochilenko was also taken from the St. Petersburg pretrial detention center : her relatives were told that the girl was being taken to Moscow.
In addition , the Agency reported that for the second day in a row, politician Vladimir Kara-Murza’s lawyer was not allowed into the penal colony in Omsk, and the lawyer for American Paul Whelan, who was convicted of espionage, said that she did not know where her client was.
RusNews also reported on the disappearance of its journalist Maria Ponomarenko because she was not brought to the court hearing on July 26. Later, however, the publication wrote that the girl was still in the pretrial detention center No. 1 in Barnaul.
Fox News, citing its sources , reported that WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich could return to the United States as early as today, August 1, as part of an exchange.
15:01 Journalist Evan Gershkovich and American Paul Whelan are also participating in the prisoner exchange between Russia and other countries, Bloomberg reports .
According to the publication, both prisoners are currently being sent outside of Russia.
15:30 Russia will also release Vladimir Kara-Murza as part of the exchange, Bloomberg reports , citing an anonymous European official.