A Russian woman says she has been denied consular services by her country's embassy in Canada over claims her Facebook activity poses a security threat.
"It totally came as a shock to me," said Elena Pushkareva, who left Russia a decade ago.
Pushkareva said the Russian Embassy, which declined to comment to The Canadian Press, denied her access to its consular service in Ottawa, where she had an appointment to update her children's documents.
Pushkareva left Russia a decade ago for political reasons. She lives in Ottawa and had visited the consular office before, as recently as Dec. 28, and booked an appointment in January to process paperwork.
A few hours ahead of the appointment, she said, she got a phone call from a man who identified himself as a Russian consular officer in Ottawa, but refused to give his name.
"They called me that morning, telling me there was no need to come, that they will not provide me with the service, and that was the personal decision made by the ambassador," she said.
"I don't understand why they decided to call me first, why it was so important for them that I don't even come."
Pushkareva said the official said Ambassador Oleg Stepanov cancelled the appointment because she posed a safety risk to the building, by virtue of being part of a Facebook group.
The group in question advocates for freeing jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, which Pushkareva said is for people who feel Russia shouldn't jail people for their political views, regardless of whether they support Navalny.
She said the man on the phone said that if Pushkareva didn't believe him, she could show up at the consulate and be told the same thing, which is what she said happened. The consulate sits in a building down the street from the embassy.
She said she recorded the Jan. 18 exchange. In the audio recording, an unnamed official tells her that being part of a specific Facebook page has led the ambassador to verbally ask staff to deny her access to the consulate.
The official says in Russian that the Facebook page included "information with calls for violent actions, to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation. For this reason, you're denied admission to the consular department."
In the recording, Pushkareva asks what exactly on Facebook amounted to a threat, but the consulate provides no example.
Instead, the official said she could write a letter to the ambassador, which she has done.
"With this decision you have gone beyond the legal framework of our country," her letter reads in Russian, accusing the consulate of violating Russia's constitution by depriving her of consular access and not providing a written reason.
"I have used the services of consular departments in Canada many times, and none of the parties had any problems in terms of security," she wrote.
Pushkareva noted that the consulate staff seemed to name a public Facebook page and conflated it with a private Facebook group with a similar name. Pushkareva has visited both, but said she is not responsible for what is posted there. She also said she has not seen violence being advocated on either site.
She also noted that Facebook is supposed to delete content deemed to be threatening violence, if moderators don't do so first.
The embassy declined to comment, but the Novaya Gazeta news site said a consulate official insisted Pushkareva had not been denied services, only access to the consulate building. Yet the official did not specify how Pushkareva could be helped without entering the building, which they called an institution with security measures.
"If you don't deny me the service, maybe you'll provide me with the service or on the street? Maybe they'll bring out a desk? So anyway, I took another appointment. I will follow on, because it's kind of interesting," she said with a laugh.
She said she went public with her story out of a sense that keeping quiet wouldn't help resolve the situation.
Yet Pushkareva is worried that being barred from the consulate will later prevent her from getting her children's Russian passports up to date. The thought of them not being able to visit relatives is "very painful," but travel seems impossible in the near term.
"There are not that many people here, who are not afraid to go speak in public," she said.
"With every situation like my case, it's really frightens people."
Pushkareva said she left Russia in 2013 out of concerns the country was increasingly less democratic. Still, she was shocked by Moscow's decision a year ago to invade Ukraine, which she has protested in Ottawa.
"My personal feeling was that it was getting worse, and now it's so sad to witness that it is getting much worse," she said.
"It's important that Canadians know that we exist, that there are Russians who have a different opinion from the opinion of (President) Vladimir Putin and the Russian government."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2023.
Canada needs a 'Conservative renaissance,' former prime minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday, but he cautioned that Pierre Poilievre should wait until an election before telling Canadians how he might run the country.
Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman says the country’s relationship with its American counterparts required rebuilding after the Trump administration.
U.S. President Joe Biden is coming to Canada Thursday evening, kicking off his short but long-awaited overnight official visit to Canada. Here's what CTV News has confirmed about what will be on the agenda, and what key players are saying about the upcoming visit.
WW International appears set to close dozens of its roughly 118 WeightWatchers locations across Canada on March 26 in what may be part of a restructuring strategy.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed Wednesday evening. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said a third and fourth bodies have been retrieved from the building. They will be sent to a laboratory to be formally identified.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says it receives tens of thousands of complaints from consumers across Canada each year, but once in a while a "quirky" one will take them by surprise.
The Canadian real estate market has been sluggish since last year, when prospective buyers started putting off plans to purchase homes as the Bank of Canada aggressively hiked interest rates eight consecutive times. But realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.
The parents of young Ontario hockey player Ben Teague have been searching for answers since he died while at a team retreat in 2019. The mystery about what happened and the code of silence in hockey culture is explored in CTV W5's 'What Happened to Ben,' on CTVNews.ca and W5's official YouTube channel.
The parents of young Ontario hockey player Ben Teague have been searching for answers since he died while at a team retreat in 2019. The mystery about what happened and the code of silence in hockey culture is explored in 'What Happened to Ben' on CTV W5.
The RCMP knew about a potential cocaine shipment from the Dominican Republic to Toronto aboard a Canadian charter flight but inexplicably allowed the crew that discovered and reported the drugs to be detained for months without intervening, a W5 investigation has revealed.
CTV W5 investigates what authorities knew about plans to smuggle cocaine out of the Dominican Republic on a Toronto-bound Pivot Airlines flight. The airline's crew is demanding justice following their eight-month detention.
A 64-year-old grandmother from Barrie, Ont. faces life in prison in Hong Kong, accused of smuggling drugs, after being duped twice in what her family believes was a sophisticated romance scam.
Anishinaabe podcaster Ryan McMahon sought to uncover the truth behind the deaths of several Indigenous people in Thunder Bay, Ont. in a new Crave Original documentary.
An Ontario mother and father say their four-year-old was recently diagnosed with a brain tumour after doctors believed his symptoms were a flu-like virus for months.
A Toronto man who was shot multiple times by a police officer while he was walking his dog last month says more could have been done to de-escalate the situation that almost left him dead.
Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning for Ottawa, calling for up to 2 to 4 millimetres of ice build up on untreated surfaces. The freezing rain is expected to last several hours before ending Thursday morning.
The city of Ottawa has released its list of road closures for the presidential motorcade and visit, starting Thursday when Biden arrives and ending Friday night after his departure.
A Tottenham woman faces impaired driving charges for allegedly blowing four times over the legal limit after crashing into a vehicle in a school parking lot.
Remembering the night he fatally shot Beau Baker outside a Kitchener apartment on Brybeck Crescent in April 2015, Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) Staff Sgt. Eric Boynton - who was a patrol officer at the time - testified he was worried about Baker killing himself or others.
It is what many people consider a safe space, secure in the confines of their own vehicle, but a stabbing on Richmond Row may have changed that for many. It happened around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon as a driver in a southbound car was waiting for a train to cross Richmond Street, just south of Piccadilly Street.
Despite the building boom in Hyde Park, one high profile development remains a bust with city staff. The planning department is once again recommending refusal of a rezoning application by York Developments.
Hundreds of students across London, Ont. and Middlesex have been suspended from school for not being up to date on their vaccinations. Notices have been delivered to 675 students and their guardians.
A LaSalle man is in serious condition and facing an impaired driving charge after a car collided with an attached garage of a home, according to police.
When Windsor, Ont.’s Environment, Transportation, and Public Safety Standing Committee meets next Wednesday, they’ll revisit the conversation around train horns keeping Walkerville residents up at night.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed Wednesday evening. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said a third and fourth bodies have been retrieved from the building. They will be sent to a laboratory to be formally identified.
The mayor of Montreal says she only had two requests of the Quebec government and one of them was ignored. Despite new buildings going up in Montreal, Mayor Valerie Plante says it's harder than ever for some people to find a place to live.
A Transportation Safety Board of Canada report has linked the fatal sinking of a Nova Scotia scallop dragger in 2020 to years of federal inaction on the imposition of stricter stability standards for fishing vessels.
A new political poll surveying Albertans ahead of May's provincial election shows a deep divide within the province, with the governing United Conservative Party and Alberta's New Democrats fighting neck and neck for support.
Wearing her husband's police jacket, Ashley Ryan walked to centre ice at a charity hockey game in Spruce Grove, Alta., Wednesday night. She, a paramedic, then dropped the puck on the matchup that Brett was planning to referee.
Wearing her husband's police jacket, Ashley Ryan walked to centre ice at a charity hockey game in Spruce Grove, Alta., Wednesday night. She, a paramedic, then dropped the puck on the matchup that Brett was planning to referee.
Alberta's premier assured a ballroom of rural leaders Wednesday that she does not want to see the province move away from electricity generated from fossil fuels, while complaining about solar panels covering farm land.
A Vancouver man who was shot in Richmond three-and-a-half years ago has been given a five-year prison sentence because of what doctors found in his underwear while they were treating him.
U.S. President Joe Biden is coming to Canada Thursday evening, kicking off his short but long-awaited overnight official visit to Canada. Here's what CTV News has confirmed about what will be on the agenda, and what key players are saying about the upcoming visit.
Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman says the country’s relationship with its American counterparts required rebuilding after the Trump administration.
Canada needs a 'Conservative renaissance,' former prime minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday, but he cautioned that Pierre Poilievre should wait until an election before telling Canadians how he might run the country.
WW International appears set to close dozens of its roughly 118 WeightWatchers locations across Canada on March 26 in what may be part of a restructuring strategy.
Canada's race to procure ventilators for COVID-19 patients in the early days of the pandemic had researchers, scientists, industry and a notable astrophysicist working 'night and day' to design machines that could be quickly manufactured domestically.
Last month, Dr. Michael Yang, a spine surgeon at Foothills Medical Centre, performed a discectomy to remove the damaged part of a herniated disc in the spine, on a patient who was wide awake.
Sky-gazers will be treated to a parade of planets near the end of month when Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Mars will appear together in the night sky.
Two organic compounds essential for living organisms have been found in samples retrieved from the asteroid Ryugu, buttressing the notion that some ingredients crucial for the advent of life arrived on Earth aboard rocks from space billions of years ago.
The battle between the U.S. and China over TikTok comes into full view on Thursday when the social media platform's CEO testifies before Congressional lawmakers.
Veteran actor Dick Van Dyke has suffered minor injuries after his car was involved in a collision in Malibu, California, police in the city have confirmed.
Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, whose testimony against his own gang helped convict two high-ranking members, was assaulted by several people at a gym in Florida, officials said Wednesday.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and several celebrities of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets.
The Canadian real estate market has been sluggish since last year, when prospective buyers started putting off plans to purchase homes as the Bank of Canada aggressively hiked interest rates eight consecutive times. But realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.
The federal Liberals are moving ahead with plans to create an ownership registry after promising to increase transparency about who owns and controls corporations.
When Ai Weiwei opens his new show in April, visitors will encounter a familiar scene at London's Design Museum: Claude Monet's famed water lilies. But the monumental recreation is made from the studs of Lego bricks — a whopping 650,000 of them.
Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez completed a first-round sweep for Canadians in the women's singles draw at the Miami Open with wins on Wednesday.
Major League Baseball has clarified its new rules to allow umpires to delay the start of the pitch clock after big swings in which a hitter loses footing or when a pitcher covers first base, third or home, in addition to other clarifications announced Wednesday.
The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production. General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.
U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating complaints from Honda Civic drivers that their steering can stick, causing a momentary increase in effort and increasing the risk of a crash.
The 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 will deliver 1,025 horsepower from its 6.2-litre supercharged V-8, and the automaker says it will be the quickest production car made.
