Rafael M. Manueco
Correspondent. Moscow
Monday, October 7, 2024, 7:15 p.m.
The Russian activist Ildar Dadin, known because he was the first opponent to go to jail after the promulgation of the law that punishes those who repeatedly participate in unauthorized demonstrations, died last weekend in clashes with his troops. own country in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. Journalist Ksenia Lárina was the first to report his death, which was also confirmed by exiled dissident Iliá Ponomariov, who was a friend of his.
“I have just been informed that Dadin died in combat in the Kharkiv region,” Lárina wrote on the X social network on Saturday afternoon. The informant later assured, without providing details of the circumstances of the death, that the news came to her from the former vice president of Gazprombank, Igor Volobuyev, who also fights on the side of the kyiv Army.
Ponomariov, for his part, announced on Facebook that “it is with deep regret that I must report that Ildar Dadin ‘Gandhi’ has died. I met Ildar by chance during the protests on Bolotnaya Square against Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a new presidential term in May 2012. “Then he proved to be a brave and consistent fighter,” said Ponomariov, who regretted that “he has not lived to see victory (…), although his name will appear on the streets of Russian cities. He also recalled that Dadin joined the pro-Ukrainian Russian paramilitary group Russian Freedom Legion in December last year.
The activist was the first person in Russia to be convicted of repeatedly violating the rules for holding public events that require permission from the authorities. In March 2016, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for this accusation. The rule of the Penal Code by which he was tried began to be called ‘Dádinskaya’.
Later, the Russian opponent denounced, through a letter to the publication ‘Meduza’, now banned and its editorial staff exiled, the torture he suffered while serving his sentence in the Number 7 prison colony in the Karelia region. In February 2017, the Supreme Court annulled Dadin’s conviction and recognized his right to be rehabilitated due to the “illegal” manner in which the process against him was carried out. In December of that year, he received compensation from the State.
Alexei Navalny
The Constitutional Court of Russia ruled in 2017 that such regulations can be applied only when administrative offenses pose a “danger to citizens or public order” and even the president of the Senate, Valentina Matviyenko, ordered its modification. However, in May 2020, this regulation was updated to exclude activists who repeatedly participate in unauthorized rallies as candidates for elections at any level for five years, leaving Alexei Navalny, among others, outside the local elections.
After the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Dadin left Russia and moved to Poland, where, according to Radio Liberty, he prepared the documentation to, before leaving for Ukraine, join first the so-called Siberian Battalion and then the Legion for Freedom. from Russia. He acquired the name ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ as a war nickname, in honor of the politician and fighter for the independence of India, a supporter of non-violent resistance.
Ponomariov, for his part, was a deputy of the State Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) in two terms. On March 20, 2014, he was the only parliamentarian to vote against the annexation of Crimea. He has lived in exile since June 18, 2014, when he left for the United States. On April 7, 2015, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Duma deprived him of parliamentary immunity in the framework of an investigation for embezzlement, one of the accusations, with generally rigged evidence, usually presented against Russian opponents. .
#wellknown #Russian #activist #fought #Ukrainian #army #dies #combat #Basque #Journal