A criminal case about the rehabilitation of Nazism was opened against an activist from Tambov

A criminal case was opened against the activist from Tambov, Andrey Polyakov, based on an article about the rehabilitation of Nazism, due to a comment on the Vkontakte social network.

According to ASTRA Telegram channel, the reason for the initiation of the case was a comment about the opening of a memorial plaque to the “Hero of the SVO” (as the Russian authorities call the war in Ukraine) in Tambov. “Let’s call the heroes of SVO by the good old word SVOloch,” the comment said.

As ASTRA notes, the police saw in Polyakov’s statement “signs of insulting the defender of the Fatherland.” The activist was arrested in absentia and placed on the federal wanted list. He himself told journalists that he was in Georgia.

This is not the first criminal case against Polyakov under the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism. In the summer of 2022, the court fined him 250,000 rubles for posts on social networks in which the activist criticized the actions of the Soviet government during the Second World War.

Polyakov left Russia in August 2023 due to the risk of initiating a new criminal case. A couple of months before that, a protocol was drawn up on him for the article on the production and distribution of extremist materials because of an avatar with a white-blue-white flag in the form of a heart in a telegram. In September, a criminal case was opened against the activist for repeated propaganda and demonstration of Nazi or extremist symbols.