Misha Verbitsky

I am free and safe out of Armenia

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:06:35 GMT

Типа официальное письмо, которое я дорогим коллегам сейчас
буду рассылать, раз уж меня выпустили.

Dear friends, colleagues, and all people of good will
who helped or wished to help me during my trials.
Since today, I am free and safe out of Armenia.

I feel that I owe you some explanation.
Just skip it if you feel bored.

This Friday, I was detained in the Yerevan airport (handcuffed
and brought to a prison). I came to Yerevan on my way to
Rehovot, Israel, to meet with my high school classmates (from
the 57 mathematical school in Moscow). After 45 years since
we first met, these folks became like a second family to
me. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started,
so many of us, including myself, had been living in exile. Armenia
(famous for its hospitality and also famous for openly choosing
the pro-European course of development, despite threats
of reprisal from the dictators Putin and Lukashenko) seemed
like an optimal meeting place for our group. Also I was
trying to choose a ground for a possible conference in
mathematics, where the former colleagues from the 2010-ies
Russia could meet professionally.

I made a terrible error.

What I did not realise that Armenia, as well as
Azebaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Usbekistan and (since 2023) Russia are part of the Kishinev
convention, which regulates (the semi-automated) extradition
of criminals. The extradition proceeds in assumption that they committed
a crime which is against the law in both countries. However,
most of the extradition procedure is fully automatic and does not
include any sanity checks.

When I bought the tickets to a flight to Armenia,
I realised that I am declared an international criminal in
Russia, for some unknown (and probably long forgotten) post
I made in Internet. This charge I personally characterize
as "a frivolous court order".

In English the idiom "a frivolous lawsuit" is well known;
it means "a lawsuit filed primarily to harass, intimidate,
or burden someone." In recent years, Russian courts routinely
publish frivolous court orders. Some of these are really
funny, in a deadpan surrealist fashion.

For example, a Russian court ordered Google to pay Russia
2 undecillion rubles, for Youtube blocking Russian state
propaganda channels. Just in case, 2 undecillion is 2 with
36 zeros. World GDP is 8 quadrillion rubles (8 with 15 zeros).
The weight of 30 undecilion rubles is 300 million times the mass of the
Earth.

Some other orders are not so funny. Convicting
exile journalists in absentia became a routine, quite
a number of Russian emigre journalists got a jail
term (5-10 years) for "fake news" publications about
the carnage that the Russian troops perform in Ukraine.

Not only journalists. Famous writer Boris Akunin
emigrated from Russia in 2014. However, in 2025 he
was tried for "Justifying terrorism" and
"Facilitating terrorist activity", and got 14 years
in prison (fortunately, also in absentia; Akunin lives
in London).

The court harrassment does not end here. In 2024, a Russian
court published a search warrant against a British journalist
Tom Rogan for a piece in Washington Examiner (written in 2018)
where he suggested that Ukraine should bomb the freshly built Crimean
bridge. It seems that Tom Rogan did not even visit Russia,
he was tried in absentia for a crime committed in absentia.

My case is similar. Since 2021 I visited Russia only once,
spending 5 days to bury my father. My family pleaded with
me not to go, but I decided that the subject is grave enough
to close my eyes on the calculated risk, which I considered
small enough: the Russian legal system is just too slow. After my
visit became a matter of record, somebody in Russia decided
to prevent such incidents in the future, and the order against
me (not different from the one against Tom Rogan) was fabricated.

Nobody, except the court, knows what was the object of the crime.
Some people suggested that I should hire a lawyer to fight
this case, and I asked my friend Alexander Cherkasov,
a prominent human rights defender and former leader of the
Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian organization, the Memorial Human
Rights Defence Centre, to help me. Unfortunately,
Memorial was liquidated after a long campaign of police and
court harrassment. Memorial was also declared an extremist
organization, distributing materials in support of
terrorist and extremist movements, and criminalized;
even an association with Memorial may lead to years
in jail. After a big number of promiment human rights lawyers
were arrested, it is hard to find one now, and I decided
not to fight my court charge.

Many (pro-Putin) newspaper articles about my trial
published in 2024 (when the court order against me was
issued) say "Verbitsky criticized the Russian government
and the special military operation in Ukraine, and expressed
doubts about the official version of the terrorist attack
at Crocus City Hall."

I have written about Crocus City Hall only once, and this
post is not hard to find.

https://lj.rossia.org/users/tiphareth/2607016.html

* * *

THEY GOUGED AN EYE

I'm recording this for memory.

https://tvknews.ru/publications/news/78981/
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/03/26/upolnomochennaia-po-pravam-cheloveka-rf-zaiavila-o-nedopustimosti-pytok-k-zaderzhannym-news

The "terrorists" (in reality, apparently just frightened
Tajiks who were forced under torture to admit guilt) were
tortured, and a video of the torture was immediately posted
online by the officers in charge.

One "terrorist" had his ear cut off (all of this is on
video), another was tortured with electric shocks to the
genitals, a third had his eye gouged out.

"Human rights defenders" (members of Putin's "human rights
councils") approve of all this torture and say that there
should be more.

Russia keeps hitting rock bottom, one layer after
another. The country is turning into some kind of pathetic
imitation of ISIS, and the population, in a fascist
frenzy, approves. A massacre is inevitable.

Get out of Russia while it's not too late.

Privet.

* * *

I would not say that I am a popular journalist;
whatever I write, I write mostly for my own memory.
In Russia, my blog is closed by the Russian Internet
censorship system, and I am pretty sure the number
of people who read it is a few hundreds at most.

Regardless of charges, the Kishinev convention in
Armenia proceeds along the same lines. If you have an open
warrant against you, you are to be arrested
_automatically_. During the next 72 hours, you
stay in prison waiting for a communication
from the court which issued the arrest order.

After 72 hours, the court decides how you spend the next
40 days, when your minders wait for the details on your
charges from the issuing court. In most cases you spend
this time in jail as well. After they get all the
details, they decide whether the law you break matches the
law in their country, and extradit you if the match is
found. During this time, you are free to ask for a
refugee status, and this might put a stop on your
extradition, even if the court decides against you.

The system is complicated, contains many fully automatized
procedures, and very much ripe for grave abuse by a country
which uses its courts for harrassment of its political
opponents.

I spent 72 hours in solitary. It was hard, because I
worried a lot (everybody told me I will spend months
in prison, and in the best case get some hours
for work on a computer without Internet). There were
no comforts. I wrote about 40 pages of math (I am
rather proud of the results), but I felt dismal, because
I am seriously addicted to reading, and could not
get to sleep even after hours of physical exercise.

After 72 hours I was just released (suddenly).
Everybody told me that after I am released, I would
need to spend a few weeks waiting for a court order
allowing me to leave, because my name in the Russian
database of criminals stays forever. Miraculously,
this problem solved itself (not without a little
help from Attorney General, or some other friendly
person in the goverment of Armenia, I suspect).
Finally I was free to leave.

I spend in Armenia 90 hours, 72 in prison and the
rest in a kind of sleepless mental haze. I am still
rather dizzy, but I felt that people who fought for me
should be thanked before I get to sleep for the next few
days, trying to forget whatever happened or could have
happened if I were less lucky.

I am free because of you all. I mean, literally: I am sure
that without the open letters and other public activity nobody
would have spent so much effort on poor ol' me to break the
custom procedure and release me out of jail so early.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Let's hope that the new Armenia will abolish the scary
procedure, dictated by the Kishinev convention, and ignore
the court orders which are clearly abusive or frivolous.
And before this time, let's hope that neither me, nor
Tom Rogan, nor Boris Akunin visit Armenia.
I love this country, I have quite a few dear friends
who are Armenian, but I spent 90 hours there, and,
honestly, I would not do this again.

Some personal thanks: my lawyer Vache Simonyan,
who was for 72 hours my only contact with the external
world; my wife Yulya, my daughters and my dear classmates
who helped her throughout; Roman Leibov, who alerted the Russian
press; my colleagues and friends David Kazhdan, Alexander
Shen, Richard Thomas, Dmitry Kaledin, Graham Smith,
Michael Finkelberg, Dennis Gaitsgory and Dmitry Novikov
who compiled and posted the petitions in my support;
my students and former students, who helped enormously;
the Brazilian Mathematical Society and the
French Mathematical Society who wrote
official notes of concern; my colleagues in IMPA,
who helped me in this difficult time; Armenian
human right defenders, whose help was invaluable
throughout; and everybody who wrote articles,
signed or wrote the letters in my support.

Misha Verbitsky

I am free and safe out of Armenia

на свободе

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Мнение обозревателя

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агрессивный, невежественный коллективный хам и дебил

Смерть врагам империализма!

в честь дочери первой женщины-космонавта Волентины Терешковой