Anarchist Black Cross Moscow stops supporting Dmitry Pchelintsev and Maxim Ivankin
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In February 2020, Meduza published an article "Four went in, only two returned" in which Aleksey Poltavets confessed to being complicit in the murder of 2 people, Artem Dorofeev and Ekaterina Levchenko, on March 31, 2017. He also accused Maxim Ivankin of complicity, and Dmitry Pchelintsev for incitement. Poltavets himself fled to Ukraine, and did not become a defendant in the "Network case", for which Pchelintsev and Ivankin received prison sentences of 18 and 13 years.
Unlike Meduza, we are not journalists. We are political activists, and we do not publish information just because we have received it, and it may be interesting to someone. We take responsibility for our words, and if we accuse someone, or even hint at an accusation, we will do it only with well-grounded reasons. And we will not speak out until the accused side has been given an opportunity to respond.
It is neither fast, nor simple to have a confidential channel of communication with prisoners facing terrorist charges in Russian remand prisons and prison camps. But in the end, Pchelintsev and Ivankin had the opportunity to speak about Poltavets's story, and to answer questions.
We are also not judges, and our goal is not to give an unambiguous assessment of various moral deeds. But we assess how much the actions of the people we support correspond with the ideals of anarchism, since this compatibility is a necessary condition for our support.
We have no doubt about Poltavets's complicity in the double murder. Levchenko's body was found after Poltavets's testimony, approximately in the location that he indicated. However, at this stage, we cannot say anything about the complicity or incitement by Pchelintsev or Ivankin, just as we cannot say anything about the possible motivation for this double murder. What we can say that Pchelintsev and Ivankin are not going to respond to all our questions, they have chosen to engage in their struggle separately from us. We will not be able to assess how much their actions correspond with anarchist ideals, but they themselves are not interested in our assessment. This choice brings about the termination of our support.
Thus, we join the Rupression-collective, which ended its support for Ivankin and Pchelintsev on November 1, after the court of appeal of the Network case in Penza, with a different position https://rupression.com/2020/11/01/zajavlenie-kollektiva-rupression-o-prekrashhenii-finansovoj-podderzhki-dvuh-figurantov-dela-seti.
We do not call for others to stop supporting Pchelintsev or Ivankin, and we will be open to revising this decision in the future depending on the actions taken by Pchelintsev or Ivankin.
Anarchist Black Cross Moscow
