Russian author Akunin declared a terrorist
The Russian financial monitoring authority Rosfinmonitoring has designated popular author Boris Akunin, who lives in exile, an "extremist" and "terrorist supporter". An investigation has also been launched against Akunin following a prank phone call by Kremlin loyalists in which he was persuaded to admit that he had collected donations for Ukraine. What to make of this latest move by Russia?
Sadly not just a bad dream
In a statement posted by Akunin on his homepage and picked up by Echo, the author warns that Russia is facing dark times:
“This is not about me. ... It's about my unhappy homeland which has fallen into the hands of criminals. The people living there - even those who have not yet realised it - are hostages. What comes next for them? An apparently trivial development - the banning of books, the labelling of a writer as a terrorist - is in reality an important milestone. No books have been banned in Russia since the Soviet era. ... This is not a bad dream, this is really happening to Russia. ... The night is getting blacker and blacker. But then the dawn will come.”
The Kremlin is losing ground
Putin's actions betray a sense of desperation, writes journalist Alexander Nevsorov on Telegraf:
“Putin's furious reaction to a few innocent remarks by the writer Akunin shows that the Kremlin is panicking. Putin suspects how bad things really are for him. This is not at all the behaviour of a self-confident victor who is assured of his power. ... Putinism has suddenly revealed all its fears and thrown a public tantrum over nothing. Searches of editorial offices, break-ins in warehouses, seizures of printed copies, the categorisation of the author as a 'terrorist' and other inadequate steps show that the Kremlin is losing ground and knows it.”