One Russian politician who was against the invasion of Ukraine instigated by Putin has reportedly been captured trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Viktor Kamenshchikov, who held a seat as a deputy in the Vladivostok Duma, officially resigned from the Communist Party on the 27th of February, a scant few days in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin launching the full-scale invasion into Ukraine. Vladivostok is a larger port city located in an area of eastern Russia, and the title of duma roughly equates to meaning city council.
“I do not agree with the position of the party leadership,” stated Kamenshchikov in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant when the event sparked off, seemingly alluding to the “military operations in Ukraine and the use of Russian troops on the territory of a neighboring state.”
“I am against war in principle,” he stated.
Vladivostok city councillor Viktor Kamenshchikov resigned from the Communist Party on February 28 in protest against the invasion. Now he has apparently been arrested while trying to cross the Mexico-US border. He reportedly has a child with US citizenship due to birth. https://t.co/LX6payUgkX
— X Soviet 🇺🇦 (@XSovietNews) May 19, 2022
It is currently unknown as to where along the U.S. border that Kamenshchikov was being held or if he was attempting to seek asylum. It was reported by RIA Novosti, the Russian state news service, that one source claimed that Kamenshchikov had been taken into custody, but “it is not yet known for what exactly, presumably for an illegal border crossing.”
Those who stood in opposition of Kamenshchikov stated he was at risk of arrest while staying in Russia, where the spreading of what the state media has labeled as “fake” information concerning the military can end up causing someone to be slammed with a 15-year prison sentence. As part of an interview, Kamenshchikov stated that the people’s outright failure to stand against war, “means that they are for it” and issued a warning that said Russia will have to pay for “5,10, 20 years for all the horror that is happening today.”
“Don’t call me a hero because I defiantly left the party,” he claimed.
As part of an interview with sibreal.org that took place on the 5th of March, he called out the government for deceiving deputies to sway their vote in favor of the military invasion. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov and the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LPDR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky knew well about the entirety of the war plans from Vladimir Putin far in advance, he stated in the interview.
The first secretary of the Communist Party’s Primorsky regional branch, Anatoly Dolgachev, claimed that the choice of running to the United States, whose “imperialist policies” are opposed by the part, is by far the worst thing any party member could do.
