Russian determined to fight Putin dies on front line
He had been convicted and imprisoned for protests against the Kremlin leader. Russian opposition leader, Ildar Dadin, has just lost his life on the front line where he fought alongside the Ukrainian armed forces.
On Sunday, Ilia Ponomarev, a former Russian MP and opponent of the regime in power, announced the tragic death of his friend on Facebook: "It's with deep regret that I must inform you that Ildar Dadin, in the nom de guerre of Gandhi, died yesterday during fighting in the Kharkiv region". He paid tribute to him by describing him as a "fearless and determined fighter", who took up arms "to fight Putinism".
Ildar Dadin first fought alongside Kiev's forces in a Siberian battalion and then in the "Russian Freedom Legion", a group that claims to be made up of Russians and which was behind several incursions into Russia, reports L'Indépendant. His death was confirmed by Russian journalist Ksenia Larina on Telegram.
In 2015, the Russian opposition figure was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Russian courts. He was accused of organizing several solo protests against the authorities. In the media outlet Meduza, Ildar Dadine denounced the particularly harsh conditions of his detention, mentioning acts of torture and humiliation by the guards.
(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: L’Indépendant - Picture: Picture by tatarstan.ru via WikiCommons under licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)