Yevgeniya Baltatarova, a journalist from Buryatia, was detained by officers of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan at the airport of Almaty, she was taken off a flight to Bishkek. According to the journalist, she is taken to temporary detention facility. This may be the first and only case of detention of a Russian citizen in a criminal case of "fakes about the army" abroad.

Yevgeniya Baltatarova is charged with two criminal cases under the article on distribution of "fakes" about the Russian military, she reported in her Telegram-channel. From the copy of the search warrant published by Baltatarova it appears that she was charged for retweeting a tweet by oppositionist Maksim Katz about the bombing of the Drama Theater in Mariupol. The second "fake" was the publication about the mass killing of civilians in Bucha. 

On September 30, 2022, Yevgeniya Baltatarova was already detained in Astana because of the "fakes" case. Before that, Kazakh authorities stated that they would extradite citizens who were wanted for criminal cases to Russia. On October 7, the Ministry of Justice included Yevgeniya Baltatarova into the register of "foreign agents" media.

It should be reminded that Buryatia ranks second among all Russian regions in terms of the number of people killed in the war in Ukraine. The mobilization announced in Russia on September 21, 2022, also affected the region particularly hard, judging by social networks and reports of human rights defenders. In Buryatia, summonses are often delivered in the middle of the night; some people say that their relatives are immediately taken to recruiting centers and then to military units; there are lines of people wishing to leave Russia at the border with Mongolia.

Original text by freerussia_eng (IG)

The life and freedom of Yevgeniya are at risk, if they extradite her back to Russia. Please sign the petition to attract the attention of the Kazakh authorities to Yevgeniya's case.