themoscowtimes.com – By Ian Bateson
Masha Bast is used to facing formidable tasks.
As the chairwoman for the Association of Russian Lawyers for Human Rights, Bast has worked on some of the most high-profile and politically sensitive cases in the country. She helped defend protesters implicated in violence at a 2012 opposition rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad; young men accused of taking part in a violent nationalist rally on Manezh Square in 2010; and the so-called Primorye partisans, dubbed the “Russian Rambos” by the media after they targeted corrupt policemen in the Far East.