Notes at the Front

Eldar Marchenko, a teacher at a business management school who dabbles in political commentary, was sentenced to 16 years in prison earlier this year on charges of terrorism. His case was examined by the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, whose experts concluded that the charges were likely fabricated by Russian security services.

Marchenko was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time in the summer of 2023, when he traveled to Kursk on business with the aid of a GPS navigator. A year later, authorities accused him of conspiring with a group of Ukrainians to orchestrate a drone attack on an aerodrome in the southern city. But no evidence was presented at his trial tying him to the drones or any other people in Kursk.

The drones were only used for surveillance, rather than attacking the aerodrome, and the notion that he was in Kursk to use his GPS navigational system to “point” to the aerodrome was nonsensical, as the site is clearly visible on Google Maps.