A prominent Russian opposition figure who disappeared for much of Sunday has re-emerged in police custody.

Pyotr Verzilov, occasional manager of punk collective Pussy Riot and publisher of the independent MediaZona publication, went incommunicado early on Sunday morning after messaging colleagues to say his apartment door was being rammed. A short while later, his landlord arrived at his Moscow home to find that locks on the door had been destroyed, with no one inside.

Neighbours reported seeing approximately 10 men attempting to gain entry to the apartment. A pro-Kremlin social media network later published a photo that seemed to show Mr Verzilov in his home looking through documents, with an unidentified man sitting alongside him. “A doctor dropped by to see Verzilov, but he didn’t want to open the door,” the caption read.

Mr Verzilov recorded a short video address after re-emerging on Sunday evening. He said he had been arrested by law enforcement officers who took him away for 13 hours of interrogations after searching his flat. The subject of those interrogations was ostensibly last summer's protests against gerrymandering in Moscow city elections. Mr Verzilov says he was in Estonia at a summer camp at the time in question.

Some news reports initially reported that the activist had been detained over plans to initiate a "Tiananmen Square" style protest by standing in front of a tank during Wednesday's WW2 Victory Day parade. This does not appear to have been the case.

According to Mr Verzilov's lawyer, Leonid Solovyev, Mr Verzilov was released from one police station, before being assaulted by an unidentified assailant, then rearrested and taken to another station. Speaking to the BBC's Russian Service, Mr Solovyev suggested police may have engineered the assault to allow them to issue a "hooliganism" charge.

Mr Verzilov has since been charged with disturbing the peace, which carries a fine of up to 1000 roubles (£12) or 15 days in jail.

Over many years Mr Verzilov has delighted in irritating the Kremlin and Russia’s conservative wing.

Before Pussy Riot, he was part of the Voina art group that drew a large phallus on a retractable bridge facing the St Petersburg headquarters of Russia’s security agency. In another “performance”, he took part in an orgy in Moscow’s Biological Museum.

Together with other members of Pussy Riot, Mr Verzilov helped found MediaZona, a website focused on law, order, rights, and abuses thereof. In recent years, the platform has stood out for brave investigations into the darkest areas of Russian state and society.

In September 2018, Mr Verzilov was taken seriously ill in Moscow in unexplained circumstances. He was evacuated to Berlin, where doctors confirmed his symptoms were consistent with poisoning. Russian authorities have so far failed to open a criminal case into the apparent attack.

This article was updated on 22 June to reflect developments in the story

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