Vladimir Valerievich Osechkin (born June 14 , 1981 , Kuibyshev ) is a Russian human rights activist , former entrepreneur . Founder of the public project “ No Gulagu!” ” In 2015, he emigrated to France , where he then became one of the founders of the New Dissidents Foundation association (NDF, Russian: New Dissidents Foundation ).
| Vladimir Osechkin | |
|---|---|
Osechkin in 2022 | |
| Full name | Vladimir Valerievich Osechkin |
| Date of Birth | June 14 , 1981 (age 42) |
| Place of Birth | Samara , USSR |
| Citizenship |  Russia |
| Occupation | entrepreneur , human rights activist |
| Spouse | Kamilla Rakhmatullina |
| Awards and prizes | |
A rather critical, but probably also true portrait of Osechkin is given here.
Biography
Origin
Vladimir Osechkin’s grandfather was a major Soviet official
Vladimir’s parents are Soviet intellectuals : his father is a journalist , his mother is a cardiologist
Vladimir Osechkin was born in 1981 in Kuibyshev , Russian SFSR
In Russia
Vladimir’s childhood and youth occurred during the collapse of the USSR . While studying at school, Vladimir Osechkin earned money by washing cars, organizing a quiz, and selling diesel fuel. In order to resist local bandits , he dreamed of getting a job “in the authorities,” preferably in the FSB .
Entered the Faculty of Law of Samara University . At the same time, he continued to earn extra money as a businessman and sold porcelain sets .
In the early 2000s, student Vladimir Osechkin was arrested in Samara on charges of “murder.” They tried to force a confession out of him, but his lawyer helped him prove his innocence and he was released after three months in custody. Disillusioned with the Russian legal system, Osechkin left Samara University without completing his studies. Having finally decided to engage in entrepreneurial activity, Vladimir moved to Moscow and began resale of used foreign cars in the regions.
In 2004, Osechkin opened his BestMotors automobile shopping center near Krasnogorsk in the Moscow region .
By 2007, entrepreneur Osechkin already had several car dealerships and a paintball club. In 2007, the local Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs began an inspection of his car dealerships, and Osechkin himself received information that they wanted to open a case against him for “fraud,” but he could pay off if he gave a bribe. Vladimir, being confident in the purity of his business, refused, but employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs began to put pressure on the salon employees and they agreed to sell several cars “bypass the cash register”. For this, Osechkin was accused of “economic crimes” (Article 159, Part 4, Article 160, Part 4 and Part 3, and Article 174-1, Part 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ), detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center for a long time . He sat in Butyrsky, Kolomensky, Mozhaysky detention centers, in pre-trial detention center-4 in Medvedkovo . While imprisoned, he constantly wrote complaints about the outrages in the detention center and violation of his rights, as well as against the organizers of his imprisonment, who in the end were themselves convicted of taking bribes.
I saved myself so that I could go free, put on a shirt and tie and become a businessman again.
In 2010, the long investigative procedure was completed, and Osechkin was formally sentenced to “7 years in prison.” A year later he was released on parole , having spent a total of 4 years in prison.
In 2011, after his release, having met Olga Romanova , whose husband, businessman Alexei Kozlov , was also accused of “fraud” at that time and was in prison, Vladimir Osechkin quickly entered the circle of Russian oppositionists and human rights activists , and took part in the activities of the “ Sitting Russia .” In the same year, Osechkin created his own public project “ Gulagu-no!” “, whose main activity was combating torture , corruption in the Russian correctional system and protecting the rights of prisoners in Russian penitentiary institutions.
In 2012, Vladimir Osechkin initiated the emergence of prisoner insurance services in Russia. Osechkin adhered to the position of the inadmissibility of interference by the intelligence services of any country in the work of the penitentiary correctional system and in the free expression of the will of the civilian population of their own and other countries, and spoke out against the protests on Bolotnaya Square , believing that many figures of the Russian “non-systemic” opposition are under the “ grant ” influence of foreign intelligence services. At the same time, because of this position, Vladimir disagreed and came into conflict with Olga Romanova and many “old human rights activists”:
This is an elite crowd ; due to the established subculture , it is not customary for them to praise the authorities, even if they have done something good.
In 2013, Osechkin became the coordinator for relations with non-state structures of the Yopolis project by Maxim Nogotkov.
In 2014, Vladimir Osechkin was invited and became the head of the working group of the State Duma of the Russian Federation on the development of public control and protection of the rights of citizens in places of forced detention, an expert of the working group on assistance to POC in the Presidential Council for Human Rights . Having become part of the official power structures of the Russian Federation , Osechkin supported the Russian law on foreign agents , which continued to displease many “ grant ” oppositionists and “old human rights activists”, who accused him of “ human rights fraud ” , “collaboration with the FSB ” and “trying to crush for themselves and for the security forces to protect human rights in Russia.” However, Osechkin himself was not included in the PMC at that time because of his outstanding criminal record.
In 2014, Osechkin announced the intervention of Western intelligence services in events in Ukraine and actively condemned Euromaidan and the change of power in Ukraine in February 2014 , welcomed the annexation of Crimea , and took part in Anti-Maidan actions in Russia . Later, he justified his actions “by the influence of sharply intensified anti-Ukrainian propaganda in the Russian media ,” which he allegedly could not avoid.
However, taking active steps to prevent, among other things, grand corruption among major Russian officials, Osechkin gradually came into conflict with the official authorities. On June 29, 2014, the Russian NTV channel released an “investigation” film, “ Left Defenders ,” which launched a discrediting campaign against Osechkin.
For more than a year I have been on the brink of imprisonment , dealing with the most pressing issues; on the one hand, I have entered the sphere of interests of thieves , on the other, the operational management of the Federal Penitentiary Service , and I do not give either of them permission to control the destinies of people.
Employees of the project “ No Gulagu! “Then it was believed that the final reason for the authorities’ dissatisfaction was the intervention of Osechkin’s working group in 2015 in the case of Evgenia Vasilyeva. Zoya Svetova and other “old human rights activists” suggested that the real reason for the authorities’ dissatisfaction was the intervention of Osechkin’s working group in 2015 in the case of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, namely, that Vladimir Osechkin, having learned that the accused in the case of the murder of Boris Nemtsov was detained tortured , asked his subordinates, who worked in his group and at the same time were members of the POC of Moscow, Eva Merkacheva and Andrei Babushkin , to go to the Lefortovo pre- trial detention center to verify this information.
In 2015, a new criminal case was opened against Vladimir Osechkin under the article “fraud”, and a discrediting campaign was intensified, in which the user of the Gulagu-Net website Denis Soldatov was gradually involved , who began to testify against Osechkin, and then also some figures of the Russian “systemic” and “non-systemic” opposition , such as the chairman of the Moscow POC Anton Tsvetkov, the head of Sitting Russia Olga Romanova, Zoya Svetova , Oleg Lurie and others
In September 2015, Osechkin, after searches were carried out on him , was forced to evacuate from Russia to Europe, in which he was assisted, among other things, by businessman and human rights activist Pierre Afner.
In France
Having settled in France , Osechkin continued his human rights activities abroad and management of the Gulagu.net project.
In 2020, a decision was made in absentia to arrest Vladimir Osechkin in Russia. Osechkin himself connects the criminal prosecution with his human rights activities.
In February 2021, Osechkin became one of the founders of the “New dissidents foundation” association (Russian: “New Dissidents Foundation ”; “NDF”). In October 2021, Osechkin played a key role in the evacuation from Russia and Belarus of the Belarusian informant Sergei Savelyev , who transferred to the Gulagu.net organization a copy of the electronic archive from the computer network of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia with evidence of torture of prisoners. On November 12, 2021, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs again put Osechkin on the wanted list.
On February 8, 2022, Vladimir Osechkin said that he received death threats. He received this information from two sources from Russia and the Chechen diaspora in France.
In February 2022, he condemned the Russian military invasion of Ukraine . In August 2022, Osechkin played a key role in the evacuation from Russia of a participant in the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatiev , who wrote the autobiographical anti-war book “ ZOV 56 ” and condemned the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In September 2022, Vladimir Osechkin reported that an assassination attempt was made on him , in which a sniper participated , and the French authorities allocated special security to Osechkin.
On September 23, 2022, Osechkin, together with Pierre Afner, conducted an international live broadcast regarding the mobilization that began in Russia . Pavel Filatiev joined the live broadcast by phone . All participants in the live broadcast in Russian and French addressed their viewers, sharply condemned the escalation of military efforts of the Russian Federation in the war with Ukraine and shared their experience and advice with everyone who wanted to evacuate from Russia.
On March 29, 2023, Vladimir Osechkin announced that the “New dissidents foundation” project was suspending the evacuation from Russia of military and security officials who opposed the invasion of Ukraine. The reason was an interview with Pavel Filatiev , a paratrooper who, having returned from the war in Ukraine , wrote a book “ ZOV 56 ” criticizing the Russian army and was taken out of the country. In an interview with a Swedish journalist, Filatiev said that a number of Ukrainians detained by him and his colleagues were subsequently killed. Since this had not been discussed before, including in a book, it was perceived as concealing information about involvement in war crimes committed.
On April 18, former prisoner Azamat Uldarov reported blackmail from Vladimir Osechkin, who, according to him, threatened to publish a video of him being abused in a tuberculosis hospital while serving his sentence and demanded that he read words from dictation during an interview. After Uldarov’s message to the FAN agency, Osechkin actually posted a video of bullying.
On May 3, 2023, Osechkin conducted an Internet broadcast , during which he read out alarming messages from listeners who were pranking him about impending nuclear strikes . I realized that he was being played only when the senders of the letters themselves announced this.
Criticism
On September 11, 2023, the Project publication by Roman Badanin published a profile of Vladimir Osechkin. In it, the publication accuses Osechkin of secretly making money by helping prisoners and former security officials obtain political asylum in Europe. According to the Project, Osechkin also takes credit for evacuations that he did not carry out. The Project also drew attention to the “absurd sensations” and questionable reports, the source of which is Osechkin. The fact is mentioned that the French authorities did not find evidence of the assassination attempt on Osechkin in September 2022, which the human rights activist denies. Osechkin regularly publicly accuses Russian human rights activists, informants and journalists of working for the intelligence services, without publishing any evidence.
In response to the accusations, a post appeared on the Gulagu.net telegram channel that the “Project” profile is “a pile of facts and unproven lies” that is “passed off as an ‘investigation’”.