Moscow judge sentences emigrant libertarian Mikhail Svetov in absentia to one year over "foreign agent" labels

A Moscow magistrate on Thursday sentenced libertarian politician and SVTV founder Mikhail Svetov in absentia to one year in a general-regime penal colony for evading the obligations of a “foreign agent”, the Moscow prosecutor’s office said, as reported by Mediazona and The Moscow Times.

The case

Prosecutors said that, while abroad, Svetov kept publishing on social media without marking his posts as created by a “foreign agent”. He had been fined under the corresponding administrative article at least five times, according to The Moscow Times. The judge also banned him from running websites and online channels for three years. He was arrested in absentia in July and has been on the wanted list since 2023.

In July, state agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported that Svetov had also been charged with “rehabilitating Nazism” over a Ukrainian song he performed; Svetov has said that in 2021 supporters of the “Male State” movement filed complaints against him over it.

Emigration

Svetov, 41, left Russia in 2021 after a search of his home in a criminal case over a photo of a former girlfriend on Instagram and a nine-day arrest for organising a rally in support of Alexei Navalny. He was added to the “foreign agents” registry in November 2022, and the Libertarian Party of Russia, which he once led, was added in July.

Sardaana News editorial position

This is another act of the Russian state’s revenge on emigrants who oppose the Kremlin and the war. The “foreign agent” label is designed to stigmatise, and refusing to wear it is turned into a crime: the verdict cannot be enforced, but it brands an emigrant a criminal and warns those who stayed.