In the village of Urdoma in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Beness Aijo, a citizen of Latvia, was detained after attending eco-activists’ camp at station Shies. Eco-activist Svetlana Babenko confirmed this to 7x7 on February 12.
According to Svetlana Babenko, Beness Aijo was taken to the police station in the village of Yarensk in the evening of February 11 and his phone was taken away. When the correspondent of 7x7 called the department on February 12, the police officer refused to confirm or deny that Beness Aijo was in the station. 7x7 failed to reach the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Arkhangelsk Oblast by phone.
Aijo came to Shies to support the opponents of the construction of ecotechnopark for disposal of garbage from Moscow and Moscow Oblast.
Dmitry Saraev, a member of the Communist Party, told the Regnum magazine that Beness Aijo could have been detained because of a request of Interpol. Aijo is wanted in Ukraine and the Baltic states for participation in illegally armed militia groups and terrorism.
Beness Aijo, a Latvian citizen of Russian-Ugandan origin, is a well-known participant of the war of independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in the South-East of Ukraine. The separatists call Aijo "Black Lenin" for his Communist views.