“The only free protest today is suicide”. Artist Andrey Akuzin, arrested in the Russian Far East for comment, ends his life in pre‑trial detention

According to Frolova, Akuzin was arrested on April 2 over a comment he made online last year. Mediazona has been unable to locate any arrest record for Akuzin on the court websites of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. “He isn’t a terrorist; it’s just ridiculous, he simply didn’t want to stay silent—formally, he was taken in over some like or reply to a post,” Frolova stated.

One of the Telegram bots analysing public user comments flagged that Akuzin had shown interest in “protest” and Artpodgotovka. The latter is a left-wing nationalist opposition group led by Vyacheslav Maltsev, a former Saratov city legislator, and it has been banned in Russia as an “extremist organisation”. Just yesterday, prosecutors demanded 23 years in prison for a Moscow repair technician over a donation to the Artpodgotovka leader after he asked about potential “tasks”.

Akuzin turned 53 on April 7. Frolova, who spoke with his friends from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, reported that he died by suicide in his cell the following day. He was posthumously added to the list of terrorists and extremists on April 10. Frolova also mentioned that Akuzin did not have a lawyer.

Akuzin went silent one day before his arrest, on April 1. In his last message to Frolova, he spoke about a dream in which she convinced him to leave Russia for Europe in a suitcase meant for theatrical props.

“We were chatting the day before and he wasn’t expecting anything bad. They had all become accustomed to the situation there and thought that no one else would get [arrested]—like, if they didn’t grab him earlier, it would not make sense at all after four years. He didn’t even have a travel passport because I kept persuading him to leave. After every conversation we had, he erased our chats—he was afraid, apparently. But he didn’t delete the April 1 message,” Frolova recounted.

She added that in their messages, Akuzin repeatedly used the phrase that “the only free protest today is suicide.”

In the 2000s, Akuzin had a solo exhibition of his work, which he told local TV was inspired by Zen Buddhism. Later, he worked as a set designer for a theatre. In 2021, Akuzin opened his own digital printing business.

Akuzin’s name appears in leaked databases of “opposition figures”. His personal Instagram account contains no political statements, with the exception of a post from July 2022 where he filmed an orchestra playing a military march in Komsomolsk-on-Amur square, captioning the video “No to war”.