Russia seizes bank accounts of writer Boris Akunin's wife

A Moscow court has frozen bank accounts containing 6 million rubles ($64,400) belonging to Erika Chkhartishvili, the wife of prominent Russian writer Grigory Chkhartishvili, alias Boris Akunin.
The Basmani District Court ruled that the money in Erika Chhartishvili's accounts "was jointly earned by the couple and used to commit crimes," Radio Free Europe reported.
In early February, the same court issued an arrest warrant for Akunin on charges of inciting terrorism and spreading "false information" about the Russian military.
Last month, Russia's Interior Ministry placed Akunin on an international wanted list for suspected criminal activity, although no specific charges were listed against him.
Akunin, 67, who currently lives in London after leaving Russia in 2014 following Moscow's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, has been an outspoken critic of Moscow's illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Russia's Justice Ministry declared Akunin a "foreign agent," along with several other additions to a criminal list widely used against regime critics.
Last month, Russia's financial service Rosfinmonitoring added Akunin to its list of terrorists and extremists without explanation, but Russian media reports said the writer was under investigation for allegedly discrediting the Russian armed forces.
The move came less than a week after one of Russia's largest book publishers and the country's largest chain of bookstores announced they were halting the sale of works by Akunin and another popular writer, Dmitry Bykov, because of their pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian comments.
In October, all Russian theaters presenting plays based on works by Akunin removed his name from the posters.
Akunin was among dozens of Russian writers who openly condemned Moscow's aggression against Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, immediately after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia, he wrote on Facebook that "a new terrible era has begun" in Russia.
"Until the last moment, I could not believe that Putin would start this absurd war, but I was wrong. I always believed that common sense would win out in the end, and I was wrong. Madness won," Akunin wrote at the time. /BGNES