“The Bi-2 case was on the desks of all European Foreign Ministries.” Dmitry Gudkov told how he managed to prevent the deportation of musicians to Russia
“The Bi-2 case was on the desks of all European Foreign Ministries.” Dmitry Gudkov told how he managed to prevent the deportation of musicians to Russia
All the musicians of the Bi-2 group flew to Israel on the morning of February 1st: the second lead singer of the group, Alexander “Shura” Uman, two guitarists, a drummer, a keyboard player and the band’s arranger. The detainees were accompanied from the migration center to the airport by the Israeli consul in Thailand, Eli Sena. The plane from Bangkok landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv at around six o'clock in the morning local time.
The day before, January 31, the lead singer of the group, Egor Bortnik (Leva “Bi-2”), arrived in Tel Aviv. He is the only one from the group declared a “foreign agent” in Russia.
The artists were detained on January 25 after a concert in Phuket. The court fined them because the musicians worked in Thailand without work visas, having entered on tourist visas. The involvement in the detention of the Bi-2 musicians, who have repeatedly spoken out against the war in Ukraine, was indirectly confirmed by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. Russian politician Dmitry Gudkov said that the Russian Consul General in Phuket, Vladimir Sosnov, had previously sent the Thai authorities a “black list” of Russian musicians, whose concert bans and deportations Russia is interested in.
On the air of Present Time, Dmitry Gudkov , who was in touch with the artists and lawyer all this time, told details about how they managed to prevent the deportation of musicians to Russia.
– You took part in the rescue of the Bi-2 musicians so that they would not be deported to Russia. Tell us about it. Who did you contact?
“There really isn’t enough airtime here to tell everything.” I can say that everything was possible thanks to the participation of a huge number of people, diplomats, as the musicians have already said, and a favorable combination of circumstances. Because yesterday was the decisive day, and when we received all the approvals, there was not a single ticket for the flight on which the guys arrived. Then, by some miracle, Maxim Katz found three.
We first decided to buy tickets only for those who exclusively have Russian passports. And we organized the next three literally in a few hours, contacting the airline through Israeli diplomats, we found three passengers who gave up their tickets and were ready to fly the next day, they were re-registered as the guys. In general, a whole special operation.
I am very glad that everything ended positively, but we must understand that there is a huge role here for the Israeli Foreign Ministry and personally for the consul, who was with us all these five days and prevented the most dangerous thing - deportation to Moscow on a direct flight. I guess they wanted to take them straight out of Phuket before anyone realized the seriousness of the situation. We fought it all off.
And then we had to involve everyone except the Israeli Foreign Ministry: the Australian Foreign Ministry, the consul, the ambassador, the German Foreign Ministry, and American diplomats. But, as I was told yesterday, the Bi-2 case was on all the tables in all European Foreign Ministries. Therefore, thank God that we managed to snatch the guys from the jaws of this, so to speak, crocodile - literally at the last moment.
I understand perfectly well that this was a special operation by the Russian special services - in order to demonstrate to all of us, Putin’s critics abroad, that they can get anyone, anywhere. They needed such a fat trophy. But, thank God, we managed to prevent this.
– You spoke about the actions of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Australian Foreign Ministry. Was there any resistance from the Russian authorities themselves? What were they doing at that moment?
- Certainly. We already agreed on the deportation to Israel on the third day, bought tickets for everyone, and everything was agreed. And in the morning, a high-ranking diplomat from the Russian embassy simply comes, they messed something up with someone at the [migration service], and then all the tickets were cancelled, except for Leva’s ticket.
They just couldn’t cancel Leva’s ticket; he is an Israeli citizen and arrived on an Israeli passport. And five musicians were flying on Russian passports. Here the main diplomatic battle was about the Russians, especially three Russians who are exclusively citizens of Russia: Maxim Lakmus, Gleb and Andrei Zvonkov - they are only citizens of Russia.
- How it works? Probably, our viewers also don’t understand how the government of a country can cancel air tickets?
– Not the government, but the migration service. She must coordinate the ticket so that you can be escorted to the airport and put on the plane. Migration takes you to passport control, takes you to your flight, and only there they give you your passport. That is, if the migration office does not recognize these tickets, they simply will not take you anywhere on any bus.
Here, you need to understand, everything was decided at the level of the Prime Minister of Thailand. This was said by Shura, who was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. There were ambassadors there, everything was agreed, as I was told, with the Prime Minister, who did not meet personally, and did not even initially plan a meeting with him. Apparently, they explained to him that this was an international scandal, that it would hit the tourism industry, that political persecution awaited the musicians in Moscow, in Russia.
Why did the rest of the diplomats get involved? Because international law provides protection from political persecution. And here they are: accusations against Zakharova of sponsoring terrorism, and deputy Lugovoi simply bluntly promised the musicians prison. The diplomats collected all this, translated it, brought it, and it was all seriously discussed for several hours.
We needed to evacuate them urgently, because we were afraid that today there would be a retaliatory move by the Russian special services and the Russian Foreign Ministry, together with the embassy, because they could connect any kind of connections. I recently read that almost Kovalchuk is an honorary consul in Thailand.
– Let's talk in more detail about the position of the Thai authorities. Why is it even possible that they are detaining people based on some requests from Russia?
– Thailand is interested in Russian tourists, and the Russian diaspora has broken all records for buying real estate. That is, they contribute greatly to the Thai economy. Therefore, if diplomats ask you for something, then you fulfill this request. And when Consul General Sosnov called the migration service and the police, they didn’t know what they were talking about: “Well, some musicians, to hell with them, well, they’re asking to send them to Moscow, why not send them.”
And only when we raised this wave in the world, in all Western media, in the most resonant ones, after that we were able to simply fight off the guys and take it all to the political level.
I can tell you what was originally planned there. There was an announcement in a Thai chat, supporters posted it. The guys didn’t pay attention at first, but I immediately tensed up. And there was this announcement: “We are paying such and such money, whoever will hire the Bi-2 musicians today at Phuket airport, approximately on duty until 22:00.” I say: “Guys, what are you doing, come on, let’s watch.” I looked at air sales, and there was a direct flight from Phuket to Moscow at exactly 23:00 something. I say: “We urgently need to call the Israeli consul, we need to be on duty, we need to control.”
We insisted that they be brought to Bangkok, and not to any airport. We managed to give them a bag containing a phone, and we followed the bus in a live location telegram [real-time geolocation].
The Russian Foreign Ministry instructed diplomats to pursue Russian artists with an anti-war position in “friendly” countries - Bloomberg
Russia's Foreign Ministry has instructed diplomats working in so-called friendly countries to pursue Russian artists and celebrities who speak out in support of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported , citing two people familiar with the matter.
As an example, the publication cites the persecution of the Bi-2 group, whose frontmen publicly oppose the war in Ukraine. In January, the musicians were detained in Thailand after holding two concerts in Phuket: they were accused of not having work permits, fined and detained. The concert organizers subsequently admitted that they had filled out the documents incorrectly, which is why the musicians entered the country on tourist visas, but drew attention to the incommensurability of the authorities’ reaction and the violations. “Usually in such cases, migration services turn to the organizer of the event to apply appropriate sanctions in accordance with current legislation. But in this case, the attention of the migration services was focused exclusively on the artists. <...> We are making every effort to free the artists, but at all stages we encounter unprecedented pressure,” explained VPI Event Co., Ltd., which organized the “Bi-2” concerts in Thailand.
According to Bloomberg, Moscow sought the deportation of the band members, which raised concerns among human rights organizations that musicians in Russia risk being arrested and prosecuted. Five of the band members had Russian passports, but four of the musicians also had Israeli citizenship, and one had Australian citizenship. Israeli diplomats intervened in the proceedings, and the Thai authorities ultimately decided to send all Bi-2 participants to Israel. “I am glad that, thanks to smart and painstaking diplomatic work, we were able to release Israeli citizens who were arrested in Thailand, along with their bandmates who have foreign citizenship,” commented Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on the release of the musicians.
Another Russian artist, Maxim Galkin, reported last week that authorities on the Indonesian island of Bali had denied him entry to participate in a show scheduled for Saturday, January 27, despite having a work visa. According to Galkin, passport control officers showed him a letter from the Russian government asking Indonesia not to allow the artist into the country. In addition, his concerts in Thailand were previously canceled on the initiative of the venue owners.
According to Bloomberg, since the start of the war in Ukraine, approximately 1 million people have left Russia, including well-known public figures and cultural figures who publicly condemned Russia's actions. Bloomberg also drew attention to the growing number of “foreign agents”, against whom the risk of criminal prosecution is growing.
Last week, the State Duma adopted a law allowing the confiscation of property of individuals for “discrediting” the Russian military. “The absolute majority is in favor of the need to punish traitors who throw mud at our country, soldiers and officers from abroad,” the agency quotes State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin as saying.
The government also approved a new concept of migration policy for the next two years, within the framework of which Russian citizens living abroad will be required to register with consulates. Another possible innovation is the ability to identify relocants using banking applications.
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