This story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If this German guy is driving his floats through German cities - and not Russian ones - how could he be breaking any Russian laws?
So either:
A. This arrest part of the story is fiction.
B. Putin is so crazy he’s trying to arrest people in other countries.
I don’t think I’d make a bet either way here.
Aside: The story did mention an “in absentia” component to all this. But I couldn’t access the links to that.
“This arrest part of the story is fiction.”
Your reference to an arrest in the story is fiction.
Reading the German press, it is clearer perhaps than this Euromaidan article. A trial is being conducted "in absentia" on whatever grounds they are relying. It's a meaningless exercise, in the end.
Yeah, that’s crazy. Civilized nations don’t try to prosecute foreigners for made up crimes. That would be like France arresting Nikolai Durov, or the UK threatening to arrest Elon Musk, or America pushing for charges against Julian Assange. Or Ukraine running a hit list of westerners who oppose them.
Crazy talk!
“If this German guy is driving his floats through German cities - and not Russian ones - how could he be breaking any Russian laws?”
It seems the Russians have made it illegal for anyone, anywhere, to make fun of Pooty Poot.
Countries do this kind of thing all the time.
For example, the USA makes it illegal for foreign nations, in a foreign country, to conspire to import drugs into the USA. Hence how the Venezuela dictator was arrested.
Excepting when you can send in Delta Force (or whatever) to make the arrest, the issue becomes if the host nation honors an extradition request and what happens when the person travels to a country that does.