Nikita Tushkanov, a teacher from Komi arrested in December 2022 for political reasons, faces criminal charges under the article on the “justification of terrorism” for his statement about the Crimean Bridge and is also prosecuted for having repeatedly discredited the Russian army. SOTA has published a video in which Nikita’s mother speaks about his stay in a pre-trial detention facility.

His mother also mentions that his grandparents were subjected to repressions in the time of the USSR, with his grandfather sent into exile from the Lugansk Region to Komi and his grandmother put into prison for a handful of grain, while their son, Nikita’s father, was placed into an orphanage. “It was much tougher then, of course, but probably there is some connection… Well, I wouldn’t want to see the return of 1937. I would like to live in a normal country, with rights and freedoms,” she says.

The trial of his case will begin this April.  According to SOTA, Nikita is being victimized in the pre-trial detention facility; thus, the guards have cut into pieces the jacket and the food passed to him.

However, his mother quotes him as saying: “At least I’m clean before my conscience. If I hadn’t spoken up, it would have been much more detrimental to me as a person.”