Endless Cycle of Incarceration: The Dark Reality of Carousel Arrests in Russia

Diana Loginova, an 18-year-old street musician from St. Petersburg, has been detained three consecutive times since last month.

She and her band, Stoptime, gained significant attention by performing popular songs by exiled anti-war artists to enthusiastic audiences in their hometown’s center.

However, their performances soon drew scrutiny from authorities. In mid-October, they faced arrest for 10 to 13 days each on charges of «organizing a rally,» which they rejected.

Upon the completion of their sentences, they were immediately re-arrested.

The experience of Loginova and her bandmates highlights a trend in Russia known as “carousel arrests”—a tactic where officials impose a series of successive administrative detentions rather than initiating comprehensive criminal investigations.

Legal experts informed The Moscow Times that Russian authorities have increasingly adopted this strategy against opponents of the war in Ukraine or critics of the Kremlin.

The rights group OVD-Info has documented nearly 60 instances of carousel arrests involving opposition figures, activists, and ordinary people in recent years.

“Carousel arrests serve to keep an individual detained while security agencies determine their course of action and gain additional time,” explained Dmitry Zair-Bek, head of the lawyers’ association Perviy Otdel.

According to Dmitrii Anisimov, a representative for OVD-Info, the exact reasons for the authorities’ persistent pursuit of Stoptime’s members remain uncertain.

“Political repression relates only partially to the rule of law; often, it results from a political choice. We do not know the nature of that decision or how it came about,” Anisimov stated to The Moscow Times.

Human rights advocates propose two primary explanations for such actions.

One reason could be that law enforcement uses these detentions to buy time for gathering and refining evidence for a potential criminal case.

“For instance, while an individual is incarcerated, officers can access their electronic devices, conduct searches at their residences, and even intimidate family and friends,” Anisimov elaborated.

“In essence, significant actions can occur while these arrests are extended until enough evidence is collected to formalize a criminal case against the individual,” he added.

This seems to be the situation for Ilya Krasnov from Moscow, as reported by Perviy Otdel.

After 11 arrests for minor misconduct, totaling 165 days in detention, authorities initiated a criminal case of treason against Krasnov.

An activist and musician from Rostov, Anatoly Berezikov, passed away while serving his third consecutive administrative detention in 2023. There are concerns among activists that Berezikov, arrested for minor offenses, may have died as a result of torture.

It is believed the real motivation behind Berezikov’s persecution was his promotion of the Ukrainian initiative Hochu Zhit (“I Want to Live”), which assists Russian soldiers in surrendering to Kyiv.

The second reason operates in the opposite direction, according to Anisimov. In such situations, law enforcement intends to simply keep an individual incarcerated for a specified duration without pursuing a criminal charge.

In 2018, the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was detained for 50 consecutive days for encouraging participation in protests against the Kremlin’s pension reforms.

Although he faced charges for repeatedly violating protest regulations at prior gatherings, the detentions ensured he would miss the rally he had called for.

During the campaign for the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections, opposition politician Ilya Yashin experienced five consecutive arrests, spending over a month in custody. Other politicians, Dmitry Gudkov and Yulia Galyamina, were similarly detained multiple times that summer, likely to obstruct opposition leaders from participating in protests opposing the barring of anti-Kremlin candidates from the election.

The protest group Pussy Riot also encountered several consecutive administrative arrest incidents in Moscow in 2021.

Maria Alyokhina, Veronika Nikulshina, Alexander Sofeev, and Anna Kuzminykh were repeatedly taken into custody, which activists claim was an effort to compel them to leave the country.

Nikulshina was initially detained in what the authorities termed a preventative measure against possible provocations ahead of the Victory Day holiday on May 9, celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. She was re-arrested twice under the accusation of disobeying police orders.

During that same period, Sofeev, also facing multiple arrests, shared with The Moscow Times that these repeated detentions had a profound psychological effect.

“When you are incarcerated, you think it’s just a matter of time, and you’ll endure it. But with repeated detentions, you start to realize that you are losing control over your life, making future plans becomes impossible, and you can’t even predict when these arrests will conclude,” stated Sofeev, who left Russia shortly after his release.

“At that time, we had a window of opportunity to leave, but now I observe that people are detained immediately upon release—things have dramatically changed,” he noted.

Russian law does not impose a limit on the number of consecutive administrative arrests an individual can undergo.

This loophole makes the practice highly advantageous for law enforcement, as stated by OVD-Info in an online petition advocating for legal reform.

“‘Carousel’ arrests breach international legal norms and exemplify arbitrary detention, obstructing the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms,” OVD-Info asserted, urging the Prosecutor General’s Office and the presidential human rights commissioner to investigate potential human rights abuses during the arrests of Stoptime musicians.

Loginova, having never been released between detentions, is set to remain in custody until November 24. The band’s guitarist, Alexander Orlov, is also still incarcerated, while drummer Vladislav Leontyev was released after his second arrest.

It remains uncertain whether the musicians will face even more arrests or a potential criminal case.

In the meantime, individuals across Russia are organizing solitary pickets and public performances in their support, with activists calling for their release.

“I still hold onto hope that this might be their final arrest,” Sofeev remarked. “Watching this situation unfold is utterly unbearable.”