Twenty-nine-year-old Russian artist and anti-war activist Lilia Manyukhina has been held in custody in Armenia for over a month. She was detained on August 30 in Yerevan at the request of Russian authorities. She is currently in a pretrial detention center, awaiting a decision by the migration service on her application for political asylum.
In 2022, Manyukhina and her friends were distributing anti-war leaflets in Moscow. During the event, a conflict arose with a passerby, who became outraged by their actions and threatened them with a traumatic pistol. The activists snatched the weapon from the man's hands and threw it in a trash can.
Following the incident, a criminal case was opened against them for "robbery." The court sentenced them to community service, but later requested that the charge be reclassified to "theft of a weapon." Manyukhina, who had been under a travel ban, managed to leave Russia.
In recent weeks, Yerevan has repeatedly refused Moscow's request to extradite Russian citizens: according to human rights activists, seven such requests have been rejected, deemed politically motivated. However, in Manyukhina's case, Armenian courts extended her detention twice, finding no evidence of political persecution.
