The owners of the bars Underdog and La Virgen, where police raided the day before because of suspicion of involvement in the financing of the UAF, apologized to customers and to the police for “wasting their time.”
“We apologize to everyone for the events of these days, including all law enforcement officers who had to participate in these events because of us and waste their time,” says in the appeal of the owners of the establishments, which was published by the lawyer Konstantin Erokhin.
Underdog and La Virgen executives said their staff were receiving online threats, fearing a repeat of the raids and willing to “do whatever it takes” to avoid it. In this regard, it is said in the appeal, one of the founders Pavel Kosov will leave the team.
Kosov, like told Erokhin of Kommersant FM, in the summer of 2022, was detained along with other owners as part of an investigation into involvement in the financing of Ukrainian charitable organizations. Baza then wrotethat the announcement of the sale of vinyl records was posted in the La Virgen account, the proceeds from which were supposed to be transferred to an organization helping Ukrainian refugees and theodefense units. The owners later reported that the account was hacked and that they did not collect money for the Ukrainians.
In a comment to RBC on March 18, Erokhin declaredthat the fundraising information was posted by the contractor responsible for the sale of the records. The owners of the bar, he said, publicly apologized, and then made a fundraiser “for the needs of refugees from the Russian side.”
The raids on the Underdog and La Virgen bars took place on the evening of March 17th. As a result, 40 people were detained, including one teenager and a cleaner. Most of them were released without protocols.
SOTA wrotethat after the appearance of the police in the bar, they began to play Shaman’s songs, “Lube” and the Russian anthem. According to one of the officers, the police forced the visitors to sing along, threatening them with stun guns. One of the patrons was forced to draw the slogan “For Russia” and the letter Z on the door of the bar.
