Yesterday the Russian Foreign Ministry announced they would investigate the arrest and deportation of Ukrainian political scientist Kirill Molchanov reported on April 1.
Molchanov resided in Russia, where he frequently criticized the Zelensky regime. He had left to attend what he believed was an award ceremony held by an NGO in Germany. But upon landing for his transfer flight in Poland he was immediately arrested and transferred to the Ukrainian SBU.
I have seen claims on social media that this was a honeypot operation to lure Molchanov out of Russia; the German NGO didn’t actually exist and the entire goal was to get him to land in Poland where he could be detained and transfered to Ukraine. I haven’t seen this version of the story substantiated, but it does seem likely that the arrest was preplanned. And that preplanning might have gone to the lengths of creating a fake premise to goad Molchanov into leaving safety.
Remember when Belarus arrested far-right blogger Roman Protasevich and how the EU called this “piracy” and introduced punitive sanctions? I remember, and even wrote a couple of blog posts about it. May 2021, that feels like ancient history now.