Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports (1) that Lev Shlosberg and the Pskov branch of the Russian opposition party Yabloko were subjected to a search and seizure of documents and a computer hard disk in their office on 13 February; (2) that Lev Shlosberg has allegedly suffered beatings for his reporting of the "unknown" graves of Russian soldiers sent to East Ukraine; and (3) that the journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was arrested and interrogated after her criticism of state policies.

We have not made specific assessments of each of these cases, but we do see all three as further signs of the continuing harassment facing opposition political parties and journalists in Russia. The interests of the Russian people would be best served by a free press and safe political spaces for dissenting views to be heard.