The Risk of Protesting in Russia

People were stopped either on national holidays when authorities were expecting protests or at other times when anti-war sentiments were running high. Most of them were told that facial recognition was used to detain them, and several of them were also told that they were being held preventively so that they wouldn't protest. In most of the people I spoke to who were detained in this way had already previously been charged and punished for protesting. No one was charged with any offence and the Kremlin referred rotors to Moscow mayor's office which didn't comment.