Alexander Vaskovsky. Photo: Social media
Russian security forces detained pro-war blogger Alexander Vaskovsky in St. Petersburg on Monday. Vaskovsky’s Telegram channel, “From Donetsk the Flame Will Spread”, announced the arrest, which was also reported by The Moscow Times. The blogger has been charged under Russia's law against “discrediting” the armed forces.
The charges relate to two posts he published on 5 January 2024. In one, he criticised corruption within the “People's Council” of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People's Republic” (DPR); in the other, he condemned Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov's reported offer to trade captured Ukrainian soldiers for US sanctions relief, calling it a “betrayal of national interests”.
Vaskovsky held senior positions in the DPR's early leadership structures, serving as co-chair of its “provisional government” in 2014 before heading its “transport committee”.
In the weeks before his arrest, his channel continued publishing posts critical of the Russian government. On 3 April, he claimed that the Kremlin's drive to recruit students into drone units had collapsed, forcing authorities to turn to public-sector workers and industrial employees instead. Before his arrest on 13 April, he commented on protests by Chinese workers in the Russian Far East, calling on “proletarians of the world to unite” and arguing that Russia’s security forces are structurally incapable of suppressing a sufficiently large popular uprising.
The case is the latest example of Russian bloggers, including ones broadly supportive of the invasion of Ukraine, facing legal jeopardy for commentary the state deems critical of the military.
