On March 17, Ilya Remeslo — a blogger, lawyer and former member of Russia’s Public Chamber — published a manifesto on Telegram titled “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” He said the war in Ukraine was “failing,” decried online censorship and the lack of freedom of speech, and argued that Putin had been in power too long and appeared intent on staying indefinitely. Remeslo described the president’s press conferences as a “circus,” declared Putin illegitimate and said he should resign and be tried as a “war criminal and a thief.”
The day after posting the manifesto, Remeslo shared videos to prove he remained in Russia and said he was ready to go to prison now so he could be seen as a hero after any future political change. The posts sparked a strong public reaction and, according to reports, Remeslo was subsequently taken to St. Petersburg’s Psychiatric Hospital No. 3. Details of how he came to be hospitalized are unclear; his contacts have since been cut off and observers are left wondering what happened.
Remeslo was long known as a leading “Z-blogger” — a patriotic online commentator who supported the war in Ukraine and campaigned against dissent. He made his name fighting the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, for whose arrest he played a prominent role and against whom he testified in courts across Russia. Navalny died in prison in early 2024 while serving a long sentence on extremism and related charges.
In an interview conducted before his reported admission to the psychiatric clinic, Remeslo said his shift was voluntary and the result of personal change. He acknowledged the abruptness of his turnaround and said his views began to shift after the 2023 uprising led by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Remeslo said he understood the risks of speaking out but insisted he would not flee abroad and expressed hope for political change.
His former allies reacted with disbelief. Apti Alaudinov, head of a Chechen special forces unit who had worked with Remeslo, said he was “deeply shocked” and suggested Remeslo might have been coerced. TV host Vladimir Solovyov suggested Remeslo may have suffered a “nervous breakdown” because of the war. Pro-government outlets variously dismissed the criticism as destabilizing, suspected it was a staged provocation, or called it a calculated move benefiting unknown parties.
Analysts were equally divided. Ivan Filippov, who studies Russian propaganda, labelled Remeslo an “accomplice in the murder of Alexei Navalny” and warned that calling Putin a “war criminal” and a “thief” was unprecedented for a former pro-Kremlin figure and could lead to arrest. Political scientist Abbas Gallyamov suggested Remeslo’s turn reflected a broader erosion of support in Russia driven by war fatigue, economic hardship and declining trust in authorities.
Others believe the psychiatric hospitalization may have been imposed. Dmitry Oreshkin argued the authorities needed to avoid elevating Remeslo into a martyr and would instead humiliate or break him; isolating someone through psychiatric confinement fits that objective. He noted St. Petersburg’s Psychiatric Clinic No. 3 has a grim reputation dating back to the Soviet era for forensic psychiatry and cautioned that the intense and varied reactions to Remeslo’s posts—from hysteria to aggression to hopelessness—reveal how politically numbed Russia has become.
This article was originally written in German.