In 2021, the year before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mikhail Loshchinin traveled to his native Russia by motorcycle, later returning to his home in western Europe without incident.Last summer, he decided to do it again -- this time to see his father , who had suffered a heart attack, for what he feared might be the last time.But Loshchinin, 48, has not seen his father: He was detained shortly after crossing into Russia from Latvia, held in various locations -- from a hotel to a holding pen where he says he was tortured -- and tried on a treason charge. On June 2, he was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison, according to relatives and media reports.
Mikhail Loshchinin
The fate of Loshchinin, a Belgian and Russian citizen who has lived in the European Union since 1999 -- the same year President Vladimir Putin first came to power as prime minister -- provides a grim look at the relentless and often arbitrary oppression the Russian state is meting out amid the all-out war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year.At a closed-door trial, a court in the northwestern city of Pskov found Loshchinin guilty of "financing representatives of a foreign state recognized as an adversary of the Russian Federation," Russian news channels on Telegram reported. The evidence: a single instance in which he sent a Ukrainian ex-girlfriend the equivalent of about $245.
