Meanwhile, in annexed Crimea, the lawyer Alexey Ladin, who has acted for the defence in multiple cases of persecution by the occupying Russian authorities, was also arrested, no doubt foreshadowing his own prosecution.
A criminal prosecution should ideally be a public dispute between prosecutors and the defence overseen by a judge, an independent arbitrator between the parties. Both the prosecutor and defence lawyer in such disputes act as assistants to the judge, providing them with potential outcomes based on their analysis of the facts and the law.