Sofia Chepik, a member of the Alyi Lebed (“Scarlet Swan”) Telegram chat, walked out of a Moscow detention facility on May 3 after serving a 15-day administrative detention sentence on a hooliganism charge, the Russian news outlet RusNews reported.
Speaking to an outlet correspondent, Chepik confirmed that while in detention she was forced to take part in an “operational video” — reading a prepared text on camera that Russia’s Federal Security Service used to illustrate its announcement about a foiled terrorist plot against Roskomnadzor employees.
On April 24, the agency announced it had detained seven people who had been planning to blow up a car belonging to a senior official at the federal media regulator. The group’s ringleader, the FSB said, was killed during the operation after he “offered armed resistance.”
Along with the press release, the FSB circulated a video it presented as operational footage from searches tied to the alleged plot. In the video, an unidentified woman admits to administering a chat where information about Roskomnadzor employees was published and “violent actions” were called for. The Russian human rights group Department One suggested the woman could be Chepik.
Chepik said she was pressured into recording the video.
“There were threats that I could face criminal charges. They read me news about terrorism, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I was in the chat — I didn’t even know I was an administrator,” she told RusNews. “They read to me that some R. R. Prokofyev had been storing weapons. When I arrived at the FSB office on Lubyanka and asked what the terrorism was about, everyone just shrugged and said ‘we don’t know.’”
Everything I said in the video was a memorized text that they told me to say on camera. I didn’t even know what I was talking about. They said it would allegedly help me. I was in such a state of stress that I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t do it without a lawyer…
Alyi Lebed (“Scarlet Swan”) is a Telegram chat and anonymous movement that, following the start of widespread internet blocking in Russia, called on people to take part in protest actions. Movement representatives filed official applications to hold demonstrations on March 29 in several cities — all of which were denied. After that, Alyi Lebed urged its supporters not to participate in unsanctioned protests.
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