The offensive against Alexei Ladin is overtly aimed at punishing independent lawyers defending the ever-mounting number of victims of Russian terror on occupied territory, and at deterring others from demonstrating such courage
Russia is continuing its repression against courageous lawyers representing Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners, with the victim this time Alexei Ladin. The latter has stated that he will be appealing against this unwarranted ruling and that he will continue to represent his clients as much as he can. Ladin is the fourth lawyer tirelessly defending victims of Russian repression in occupied Ukraine to be stripped of his licence, following similar reprisals against three Crimean Tatar lawyers, as well as repression against others.
Ladin, a Russian, registered as a defence lawyer with the Tyumen Bar Association, and it was the commission of that body which, on 25 July, deprived him of his status and, therefore, his ability to fully represent clients at all stages of criminal proceedings. It was the Russian-controlled Crimean ‘police’ who, in October 2023, announced plans to get the lawyer stripped of his licence. While they claimed, and the Tyumen commission accepted, that Ladin had ‘violated lawyer ethics’ because of the recent 14-year jail sentence and fine imposed over Facebook posts, there had been no justification for the latter. It seems likely, in fact, that the prosecutions over social media posts were always merely a pretext with the aim from the outset to deprive political prisoners of another lawyer and to send a menacing message to other lawyers of what they will face if they carry out their duties properly.
Ladin was detained on 13 October 2023, just after he arrived back from Rostov (Russia) where he was representing Yaroslav Zhuk, a Ukrainian civilian abducted from occupied Melitopol and Ukrainian POW Pavlo Zaporozhets who was illegally seized while Russia was occupying Kherson.
Officers from Russia’s so-called ‘centre for countering extremism’ carried out a search of the lawyer’s apartment in Sevastopol, removing material containing information which should be strictly between Ladin and his clients and committing numerous other violations.
