The 18-year-old singer and her bandmates in the group Stoptime had found viral fame as they performed popular tracks by exiled anti-war artists to large crowds in the center of their hometown.
They soon caught the attention of the authorities. In mid-October, they were arrested for 10-13 days each for allegedly “organizing a rally,” an accusation they denied.
But when their sentences expired, they did not go free — they were re-arrested on the spot.
Loginova and her bandmates’ ordeal is the latest example of what has become known in Russia as “carousel arrests” — a repressive tactic in which authorities impose consecutive administrative arrests instead of launching full criminal proceedings.
Russian authorities have ramped up their use of this practice, particularly against critics of the war in Ukraine or the Kremlin, legal experts told The Moscow Times.
The OVD-Info rights group has recorded almost 60 carousel arrests of opposition politicians, activists and ordinary citizens in recent years.
“Carousel arrests are used to keep a person in one place while security services decide his fate and gain extra time,” said Dmitry Zair-Bek, the head of the lawyers’ association Perviy Otdel.
Dmitrii Anisimov, a spokesperson for OVD-Info, said it remains unclear why exactly the authorities have gone after Stoptime’s members with repeated arrests.
“Political repression is only partly about the rule of law and, to a large extent, repressions are the result of a political decision. What that decision is and how it was made — we do not know,” Anisimov told The Moscow Times.
