A Russian provincial lawmaker who, in a rare show of defiance, accused the Kremlin of lying about whether it sent its forces to fight in Ukraine was stripped of his seat in the local parliament on Thursday.
Lev Shlosberg was beaten up last year by unknown assailants days after he alleged that paratroopers buried at a cemetery in his hometown of Pskov had been killed in a clandestine operation in eastern Ukraine.
He said he had now been stripped of his seat in the Pskov regional assembly as punishment for, among other things, challenging the official Kremlin position that no serving Russian troops are fighting in eastern Ukraine.