Alexey Gaskarov

Alexey Vladimirovich Gaskarov (also spelled Alexei, Aleksei, or Aleksey) is a Russian social activist and economist who has been a major figure in the democratic, left-wing opposition to the regime of Vladimir Putin. He was a leader of the Russian antifascist movement, and a member of the Coordinating Council of the anti-Putin opposition. He became famous as a prominent critic of the government's destruction of woodland.^[1]

In 2010, Gaskarov was a spokesman for a large environmental protest in the Moscow suburb of Khimki. He was put on trial and found not guilty. In May 2012, he was beaten during the Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow, and was later arrested, tried, and convicted. On August 18, 2014, he was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony.