Russian blogger critical of Kremlin detained

A Russian court has arrested "military correspondent" Igor Guzenko for two months. He runs the "Thirteenth" channel on Telegram. The reason for his arrest is resisting the police. Previously, Guzenko wrote about "traitors in the Kremlin" and criticized the authorities.

According to the statement from the Stavropol Territory Court, the blogger is accused of "using violence" against an authority official, which could lead to a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Before his arrest, Guzenko had been placed on the federal wanted list for hooliganism, an offense carrying a potential prison sentence of up to seven years. The Stavropol Territory Court noted that in 2022, he violated the terms of his house arrest by going to fight in Ukraine, subsequently adding him to the wanted list.

In early September, Guzenko published a series of emotional videos on his Telegram channel, "Thirteenth," in which he harshly criticized Vladimir Putin, the Russian government, and the military leadership.

This occurred amid news of criminal proceedings for "discrediting" the army against his colleague, war correspondent Alexander Sladkov. Guzenko accused Putin of not initiating a full-scale war in 2014, which he believes led to the current crisis in Ukraine.

"If ten years ago an old man hadn't backed down and had fought honestly in 2014, all this rubbish wouldn’t have happened, and so many young men would not have died. And now we end up captives and are being killed," he said.

Guzenko also expressed the opinion that Russia is led by traitors who currently "sit in the Kremlin."

He emphasized that the authorities persecute those they dislike, citing Igor Girkin (Strelkov) as an example. Girkin, a former commander of separatist formations in Donbas who started the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, was convicted in the Russian Federation for extremism and was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by the court in The Hague.

In early October, Guzenko complained that the Russian army fighting in Ukraine does not have enough missiles to conduct combat operations actively. He linked this to Kyiv's attacks on Russian arsenals.

"Thirteenth" was detained on October 5 in the central square of Novopavlovsk in the Stavropol Territory during the city's holiday celebrations. According to the Baza channel, a "packet with an unknown substance" was found in the blogger's pocket. Guzenko refused to undergo a medical examination.

Meanwhile, the Mash channel reported that a fight with a policeman prompted the blogger's arrest. The cause was the blogger's mask, which supposedly "alarmed the surroundings."

In a short video that the blogger posted on his channel immediately after the arrest, he complained about the use of force by law enforcement officers against him.