Russian authorities on Tuesday put influential gallery owner and former Kremlin adviser Marat Gelman on their wanted list a year after declaring him a «foreign agent» and in the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Gelman, who moved in 2014 to Montenegro after denouncing an increase in restrictive measures against artists in Russia, now appears in the Interior Ministry’s database, which mentions his Israeli citizenship but does not qualify the exact reasons for his inclusion, according to reports in ‘The Moscow Times’.
In January this year, several people painted graffiti on the window of his Moscow home with the words «Russian agent». The 61-year-old man was visiting the Russian capital.
Now, Gelman has linked this inclusion to the latest speech given by the president, Vladimir Putin, in which he has ordered special services to look for «enemy» agents abroad. «Russian agents are paid and they want to keep getting paid. That’s why they have to look for all these enemies. If they run out of enemies they are sent to the front to die,» he said.
In the early 2000s, Gelman worked as a consultant for Putin’s entourage and later headed a state television network. Before turning to politics, he worked in the art world and founded one of Russia’s first private art galleries.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
