Prominent theater director Kirill Serebrennikov has been detained by authorities over fraud charges, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Tuesday in an online statement.
Serebrennikov is facing charges of embezzling 68 million rubles ($1.1 million) in government funds as part of the “Platforma” project connected to his central Moscow Gogol Center, a claim he denies.
Three former employees connected to the Gogol Center are on trial, including an accountant, Nina Maslyayeva. Maslyayeva earlier this month during a court hearing accused Serebrennikov of being the mastermind of a scheme to syphon off government funds.
The Gogol Center is among the most prominent in Russia and it is widely respected for its progressive productions. The case against the theater and Serebrennikov is widely seen as part of a state crackdown on the arts, or the director personally.
The director’s lawyer, Dmitry Kharitonov, told the opposition-leaning Dozhd television station that Serebrennikov was detained in St. Petersburg, where he had been working on a film on the Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi.