A young Komi-Karelian activist announced this month that he was able to escape Russia despite being featured as a key witness in a high-profile investigation handled by the Federal Security Service (FSB).  Nikita Goldin, 18, was detained by Russian security services in the northern port city of Arkhangelsk in September and taken in for an interrogation that lasted 10 hours.  FSB operatives also raided Goldin’s apartment in search of “swastikas and explosives,” but instead found and confiscated his “birth certificate, a school diploma, a thumb drive with childhood photos and one hard drive,” according to the activist.  “I heard the investigator say: ‘He clearly isn’t cut out to be a Nazi, so we will put him down as [an ethnic] nationalist’,” Goldin told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.  Russia’s indigenous activists have faced increasing pressure from the Kremlin since the start of Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.  While many chose to flee the country, those remaining have continued their work under the watchful eye of the FSB and the Interior Ministry’s Center for Combating Extremism, risking receiving lengthy jail terms on charges of inciting ethnic hatred, engaging in terrorist activities or treason. 

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