Roughly a week ago we here at Racket got bad news from our partners at the Substack site “Russian Dissent.” Boris Kagarlitsky, a soft-spoken academic and writer I met in the nineties who is a primary contributor to the “Dissent” site, has been arrested by the FSB. I made calls to Russia today and an initial report in the Moscow Times is true: Boris has been removed to a facility in Syktyvkar, in the republic of Komi, 1300 kilometers from his home in Moscow. The offense is supposedly “justifying terrorism,” based on a short, unremarkable article he wrote on Telegram last October.
Boris has supporters in Moscow and a lawyer. We’re trying to arrange additional aid, and will have more information soon. Our world grows more ridiculous by the hour.
