Stavropol activist links search with statement in support of Lada-Rus*

Stalina Erlenbach, an activist of the movement "Building Future Ourselves", has reported that during searching her home, law enforcers were looking for extremist materials; she has linked the search with her demand to nominate Svetlana Lada-Rus* as a candidate for Russia's presidency.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 15, searches were conducted at homes of activists of the radical movement "Building Future Ourselves", Maria Karnaukhova in Stavropol and Stalina Erlenbach in Nevinnomyssk.

During searches, supporters of the "Building Future Ourselves" movement were searched for extremist materials, but nothing was found, Stalina Erlenbach has stated.

"We just want order in the country and wrote a statement demanding that Lada-Rus* come to power," she has explained.

The searches had to do with activists' civic position, Alina Lushavina, a blogger, is sure. "As far as I know, they filed the same statement as I did against Putin, that he could be a foreign agent," she has stated.

Mikhail Akhmetiev, an expert from the SOVA Research Centre**, has emphasized that supporters of Lada-Rus* have always been active.

Vasily Balditsyn, the chairman of the Stavropol Territorial Union of Journalists, has noted that he doesn't know any supporters of the "Building Future Ourselves" movement in the region. According to his story in the Stavropol Territory as a whole there are no organizations that are treated as radical.

*In 2016, the Oktiabrsky District Court of Samara sanctioned the arrest in absentia of Svetlana Lada-Rus (Peunova), accused of complicity in a particularly large-scale fraud. She lives outside Russia and has been put on the federal and international wanted lists. In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) included her into the register of foreign agents.

**On August 17, 2023, the First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction approved the decision taken earlier in April by the Moscow City Court to liquidate the SOVA Human Rights Centre.