In May 2018 Kira Yarmysh found herself in jail for a second time. Yarmysh – press secretary to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – had called for people to attend an anti-government rally in downtown Moscow. Its title: “He’s Not Our Tsar”. The tsar in question – Vladimir Putin – was about to be inaugurated as president for a fourth term.
The Moscow authorities refused to sanction the rally. What happened next was predictable. Riot police arrested hundreds of people. Later that month Yarmysh turned up at a police station seeking the release of a fellow campaigner. She was herself detained and held overnight. A court gave her 25 days behind bars for “administrative violations”.
