Lev Skoryakin is released in the courtroom . He was sentenced to a fine of 500 thousand rubles and was immediately released from it due to his long stay in a pre-trial detention center. At the same time, the prosecutor's office requested a 5-year sentence. There's a pattern emerging, you know? If it could be said about Kagarlitsky that since the prosecution did not have time to soften its request, the order came promptly from the very top, then it is hardly possible to say so about Skoryakin: there are no signs that they were interested in him “from above.”
All this hints at systemic politics, probably timed to coincide with the elections. The authorities lowered the valves in exactly the same way in 2013 before the Olympics. The task is simple: reduce the number of radical actions. Therefore, we should expect Strelkov’s release (after the deadline for registration for the presidential election expires) so that turbo-patriots can vote for Putin or not vote at all, and not, say, spoil the ballot.
For the same reason, in early December, security forces attended political events of the OKI and Other Russia. The tactics, apparently, are carrots and sticks: intimidate the active, appease the passive.
We should have no illusions. People being free is good, but the “good times” will not last long. Afterwards we can expect even more brutal repressions. Therefore, everything possible must be done to ensure that the Putin consensus, if not lost, is at least called into question.