Moscow court upholds treason arrest of businessman over Ukrainian tax payments

In a case that has drawn attention to the increasingly expansive interpretation of state treason in Russia, a Moscow judge has upheld the pre-trial detention of Oleg Varyukhin, a 60-year-old businessman and former pilot who faces life imprisonment after being accused of state treason for the sole act of paying mandatory taxes on his earnings as an individual entrepreneur into the Ukrainian state budget, according to the exiled outlet Mediazona. The defendant, who reportedly ran a perfume business in Ukraine and was arrested in early May after flying into Moscow from Moldova to visit relatives, was last issued a Russian passport in 1981 and has never obtained Russian or Ukrainian passports following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with his defence attorney, Yury Shel, arguing that the case defies logic, noting that every worker in any country is obligated to pay taxes and has no control over how the government distributes those revenues. Shel contended that his client, who had obtained a Ukrainian business licence in 2014 and was planning to enter Russia on a temporary travel certificate issued by the Russian Embassy in Moldova, had no say over the allocation of tax funds, just like any other taxpayer, and dismissed the treason charge as an absurd application of the law.

The case has followed a curious procedural trajectory, with Varyukhin reportedly subjected to so-called "carousel arrests"—a practice involving repeated short-term detentions—on charges of disorderly conduct between May and July, during which he served four consecutive 15-day jail terms before being transferred to a pre-trial detention facility on 22 July, according to Mediazona. While two of the court rulings from that period identified Varyukhin as a Russian citizen, the other two redacted his personal data, adding an air of opacity to proceedings that culminated in Wednesday's decision by the Moscow City Court to uphold his detention on state treason charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Russia. The Moscow Times was unable to independently verify the details of the report, and it remains unclear whether the authorities consider his Soviet-era passport or his temporary travel certificate as grounds for citizenship, but the case has nonetheless raised troubling questions about the criminalisation of routine financial obligations and the potential for Russian law to be wielded against individuals with even the most tenuous ties to the country.