The writer reported that mathematician Mikhail Verbitsky was arrested at Yerevan airport Roman Lebov and “Al-Matar” TV channel.
Lipov wrote that Verbitsky was detained at the airport at the request of the Russian Federation and requested the release of this information on the advice of Verbitsky’s lawyer.
The Zvartnots Airport Police Department confirmed to Dozhd that Verbitsky, who is on Russia’s most wanted list, has been arrested. According to an Interior Ministry employee, the mathematician is now in an isolation ward in Yerevan.
According to Ani Shatinyan, a lawyer in the Yerevan office of the Helsinki Civil Association “Vanadzor”, Verbitsky was arrested due to a criminal case against him in Russia. She explained that if Russia sends an extradition request, then according to the law, Verbitsky will be detained for 40 days, and if not, he will be released after 72 hours.
In January 2025, Verbitsky, who is in Russia, was added to the “Rusvin” list for monitoring terrorists and extremists. There he was listed with an asterisk – meaning a case had been filed against him under a terrorist article. RIA Novosti, citing sources, wrote that Verbitsky has become an accused in a criminal case related to calls for terrorism.
Verbitsky in an interview with Kholoud He saidHe left Russia in 2015 and lives in Rio de Janeiro, where he holds a professorship at the National Institute of Mathematics.
Verbitsky worked at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow, and taught at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Higher School of Economics, as well as at the University of Glasgow and the Free Belgian University in Brussels. He is known as a blogger and creator of Tifaretnik, a platform similar to LiveJournal. He himself described himself in blogs as a “communist,” “anarchist,” and “Satanic.” In the late 1990s and early 2000s he was a supporter of the “Russian World” and the National Bolshevik Party.
In 2014, Verbitsky was a witness in the criminal case of propagandist Boris Stomachin, accused of inciting religious hatred, calling for extremism and justifying terrorism.