On 13 December 2023, a member of Russia’s State Duma (parliament), Andrey Lugovoy, published several postal addresses in his Telegram channel, claiming these were used by scientific journalist and writer Asya Kazantseva, who was previously designated as a “foreign agent” for her criticism of the war with Ukraine.
Several days earlier, a Moscow-based editing company canceled a public presentation of a new book by Kazantseva, motivating this by concerns over her security.
In his publication, Lugovoy posted addresses which he claimed were Kazantseva’s with the following caption: “For those who personally want to convey to Asya that betrayal of one’s country is the most terrible sin.”
Commenting on the news, the journalist emphasized that Lugovoy’s actions were illegal under Russian law. “The good news is that these four addresses are just places where I ordered pizza deliveries to in recent years, I only lived at one of them and this was quite a long time ago,” she added.
Later in the day, Russian online media Agentstvo reported that Kazantseva’s personal data had been removed from Lugovoy’s post, but all of his other statements condemning her remained.
UPDATE: On 21 January 2024, Kazantseva announced that she was leaving Russia “until better times come”, as a lawyer had reportedly warned her that authorities could open a criminal case against her “if they would really want to”, given the recent controversies around her person in Russia.