Hundreds Arrested as Group Urges New Russian Revolution
The Federal Security Service, Russia’s main domestic law-enforcement agency, said in a statement on Friday it had broken up several cells of Artpodgotovka and
that members had "the goal of organizing a revolution in Russia." The statement said the group planned to attack police officers, set administrative buildings on fire and create mass disturbances.
5, 2017
MOSCOW — The police arrested more than 200 people in a roundup on Sunday
that the local news media linked to an obscure right-wing movement that had been calling for a repeat of the Russian Revolution, timed near its 100th anniversary.
The movement, called Artpodgotovka, or Art Preparation, had agitated in online posts for followers to prepare for revolution,
but had not been widely known or taken seriously before this weekend.
The people who followed directions in the group’s online posts
and showed up at noon on Sunday on Manezh Square, in the center of Moscow, milled about in seeming confusion before officers arrested them.
He called it "revolution 2017." Nov. 5 falls a day after a holiday in Russia known as Unity Day,
a successor to the former Soviet celebration commemorating the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
In July, Russian prosecutors charged Mr. Maltsev under a law
that prohibits "calls to commit extremist actions." But because the authorities have also used the law against peaceful opposition figures in recent years, the accusation drew little attention.