MOSCOW: A Siberian shaman who had planned another attempt to walk across Russia in a campaign to drive out President Vladimir Putin was committed to a mental asylum for a second time.
Since 2019, self-styled shaman Alexander Gabyshev has repeatedly attempted to walk from his native Yakutia in Russia's north to Moscow for the declared purpose of banishing the country's longtime leader from the Kremlin.
But each time his attempts have been quashed by the authorities.
Police stopped him mid-trek several months into his first try, then prevented a second attempt a few months later.
After his third bid last year he was committed to a psychiatric ward in the Siberian city of Yakutsk for a two-month stay.
The 52-year-old is in the asylum once again, the ward said in a statement this week, just days after he declared he would again attempt the journey of some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) to the Russian capital, this time on a white horse.
Gabyshev had, according to the mental asylum, said at his last check-in with the clinic in December that "he categorically refused to be treated", despite the conditions of his discharge last summer requiring he take medication and appear for check-ups.
After the declaration, the asylum said, Gabyshev failed to appear at his next scheduled check-in, in mid-January.
Alexei Pryanishnikov, coordinator for the Pravozashchita Otkrytki rights group which tracks the shaman's case, told AFP the forced committal is "another attempt by law enforcement agencies to stop Gabyshev's trip to Moscow".
Pryanishnikov said that a court is now considering the asylum's request that the shaman be kept in the ward for another extended period.
He added that he felt the timing had to do with last weekend's protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
"People came out even in Yakutsk, where it was minus 50 degrees (Celsius) (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit)," Pryanishnikov said.
Navalny's associates have planned another round of protests this weekend.