Ildar Dadin, a Russian volunteer in the AFU, and in the past a well-known civil activist and a longtime participant in the protest movement, has died. His name is the famous Dadin article of the Russian Criminal Code (Article 212.1 of the Russian Criminal Code), which punishes citizens for “repeated violation of the rules for holding public events,” that is, in fact, for exercising the constitutional right to assemble.
Being the first person convicted under this article and having been taken into captivity, Dadin even there showed himself as a brave, resolute and honest person who was not ready to put up with arbitrariness under any circumstances. Protesting against human rights violations in detention and being tortured, he did not break down, but, on the contrary, publicized the facts of beatings and torture, which led to a big public scandal. His activism and intransigence led to Putin’s “Constitutional Court” being forced to change the Dadin article, and the head of the torture colony where Dadin was held was later removed from his position and prosecuted.
After being released from prison, Ildar Dadin did not stop his protest activity, but gradually began to realize the dead end of peaceful protest in an increasingly totalitarian state.
The beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russian Federation became the trigger that pushed him to more radical action. Realizing that he could no longer be a silent observer of the crimes that the Russian army was committing in Ukraine, he decided to leave Russia and join the AFU.
He eventually succeeded in realizing what he had planned – first as a member of the Siberian Battalion and then by joining the Freedom of Russia Legion. At the front, he showed the same courage as before in all other circumstances, opposing the dictatorship and the press of the Russian repressive system.
Unfortunately, war is impossible without casualties. Ildar Dadin died doing his duty as he himself understood it, defending Ukraine and its inhabitants from military aggression. He lived as a hero and died heroically, forever inscribing his name in history. He will be remembered as a defender of Ukraine and, at the same time, as a hero of the Russian anti-Putin resistance. In time, in the future free Russia, his name will be immortalized, and his surname will be known not only under the article of the Criminal Code, which we will abolish after the collapse of Putinism.
Ildar Dadin has died, but there are other volunteers like him who have decided to take the path of armed struggle against Russian military aggression. They need support: moral, financial, organizational. We once again appeal to all our like-minded people to unite and provide the volunteers with this support. Support the cause for which Ildar Dadin and other defenders of Ukraine gave their lives.
https://www.forumfreerussia.org/en/council-en,
October 6, 2024.
