Sign into an existing account

The article says he was getting in trouble organizing protests already in 2018.

You have to understand that these are classic NGO/color revolution methods. They find someone who can organize people and then they fund them/promote them doing so - the reason for organizing the protests changes and is irrelevant, the key is to identify anything the local population is angry about and use it to create chaos and anti-government sentiment. You do that in enough places and it snowballs. Targeting a region like North Ossetia is exactly what you'd expect western intelligence to do.

Cheldiyev, who is from North Ossetia – a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe – was detained in April 2020 after organising a 2,000-strong anti-lockdown protest in his hometown due to concerns that restrictions would cost many their jobs.