On 6 February 2023, a Russian court sentenced sociologist and columnist Iskander Yasaveyev to three days of administrative arrest over an analytical article with critical views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yasaveyev published the piece in Idel.Realii, a regional website by RFE/RL, a U.S. Congress-financed outlet, which publishes news for Russia’s Volga region. In the article published last June, Yasaveyev analyzed the sociological reasons behind Russia’s decision to go to war, and linked these with Soviet-era criminal culture. Russian prosecutors claimed this amounted to “incitement to hatred” against “political figures”.
In October, Yasaveyev was designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian Ministry of Justice. Three days later, he was fired from his research staff position at the St. Petersburg campus of the Higher School of Economics, a leading Russian university. Due to his arrest, Yasaveyev was not able to attend a separate court hearing on his reinstatement at the university.