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| - Russian police on Friday raided the Moscow offices of opposition movement Open Russia and opposition outlet MBKh Media, both backed by exiled former oligarch and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the groups said. The raids came after police last weekend arrested around 200 opposition politicians and municipal councillors at a Moscow forum organised by United Democrats, another Khodorkovsky-backed group. MBKh Media reported that searches took place at the Moscow and Saint Petersburg offices of Open Russia, which was designated as an "undesirable organisation" in 2017. It added that police had also searched the home of the movement's chairwoman Anastasia Burakova. "We see on the cameras that police are walking around there," the director of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, told MBKh Media, referring to the Moscow offices. MBKh Media also reported that police had searched its own offices. Lawyer Sergei Badamshin told the opposition media outlet that the searches were all in connection with a case against Nizhny Novgorod-based activist Mikhail Iosilevich. He was arrested in late January on charges of cooperating with Open Russia. Khodorkovsky, who owned the former oil giant Yukos before he was convicted in two controversial cases and spent a decade behind bars, now lives abroad. Open Russia, which Khodorkovsky founded with the aim of promoting civil society in Russia, and MBKh media have both previously faced raids on their offices in connection with the Yukos case. pop-emg/acl/kjl
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