20:40, 27 March 2026

A Kuban resident has disappeared after a series of administrative arrests.

The mother of Maxim Ovchinnikov from Anapa has been unable to locate her son since February. He was detained by FSB officers in January.

"Carousel arrests" refers to a series of consecutive administrative penalties that typically precede the initiation of a criminal case. Such administrative arrests give security forces time to exert pressure on the individual thus deprived of their liberty, allowing them to fabricate materials for criminal prosecution. For example, in 2023, Anapa resident Dmitry Polunin was subjected to this practice: over the course of six months, he was arrested ten times for criticizing the special operation in Ukraine, hooliganism, and disobeying police, and then a case was opened against him for confidential cooperation with a foreign organization. In the summer of 2024, Polunin was sentenced, which was classified.

Anapa resident Maxim Ovchinnikov was detained by FSB officers on January 27, his mother told human rights activists. According to the woman, Ovchinnikov was beaten during his arrest and went to the hospital.

Maxim's first administrative arrest for disobeying police was imposed on January 28. His mother expected him to be released on February 12, but security forces took him to Gelendzhik and held him for 24 hours at the police station. The court then sentenced him to another 15 days on the same charge, the human rights project OVD-Info* reported today.

On February 27, when his second administrative arrest expired, Ovchinnikov was again taken away by FSB officers. His mother hasn't known his whereabouts since.

The woman who filed a missing persons report for her son believes a criminal case against him may have been opened for political reasons.

"Caucasian Knot" reported that Lieutenant Colonel Igor Lominoga of the Ukrainian Ministry of Emergency Situations was subjected to "carousel arrests" in two regions of southern Russia in 2024. On May 17, the Neklinovsky District Court of the Rostov Region arrested him for eight days on charges of disobeying police. On June 6, the Kushchevsky District Court of Kuban arrested him for 15 days on the same charge. The ruling stated that police detained the man "with obvious signs of alcohol intoxication," but he refused to undergo a medical examination. On June 20, Lominoga received another 15 days for disobeying police, but this time in a different district of Kuban, in the village of Leningradskaya. On March 19, the court sentenced him to 14 years in a strict regime penal colony for treason.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/421960