Anti-Putin activist kidnapped in UN Ukraine office

An opposition member of Russia's parliament claimed on Saturday that a Russian anti-Putin activist has been kidnapped from the United Nations refugee office in Ukraine. The activist, Leonid Razvozzhaev, is being sought by a Russian committee inquiring into "preparation for the organisation of mass riots." "Razvozzhaev was kidnapped in the offices of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kiev," Ilya Ponomarev, a member of the centre-left opposition party A Just Russia, told the Interfax news agency. Razvozzhaev is an assistant to Ponomarev. "Our colleagues in Kiev told us about the kidnapping of Razvozzhaev," Ponomarev said. Police in Kiev said they had no information on the subject, Interfax Ukraine said. But a left-wing Ukrainian political movement said Razvozzhaev had come to Ukraine to seek political asylum and when he left the UNHCR building "people working there heard cries for help," the movement said, quoted by Interfax. "Since then nobody has seen or heard Leonid," it added. Ponomarev said he could not reach his aide. The inquiry which wants to question Razvozzhaev has also targeted Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov who is one of the leaders of the anti-Putin movement in Russia. Another Russian opposition figure, Konstantin Lebedev who is close to Udaltsov was charged Thursday with "preparing for the organization of mass riots. and placed in preventive detention in connection with the affair. The committee of inquiry is basing its work on a film broadcast by a Putin-supporting television channel which used footage of undetermined origin taken by a concealed camera that purported to show Lebedev planning the violent overthrow of the government.