Russian police raid opposition-backed media

MOSCOW: Russian police on Friday raided the Moscow offices of an opposition movement and media outlet backed by exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the latest move against the former oligarch, the groups said.

The raids on Open Russia and MBKh Media came after police last weekend arrested around 200 opposition politicians and municipal councillors at a Moscow forum organised by United Democrats, another Khodorkovsky-backed group.

MBKh Media reported that searches took place at the Moscow and Saint Petersburg offices of Open Russia, which was designated as an "undesirable organisation" in 2017. It added that police had also searched the home of the movement’s chairwoman Anastasia Burakova.

"They left a mess but didn’t take any of our equipment," the director of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, told MBKh Media. "We’re already used to such unpleasantness, though there is nothing normal about this."