A director from Buryatia was fined twice in a month for discrediting the army

The October District Court of Ulan-Ude fined the Buryat filmmaker-documentary artist Artyom Burlov 30 thousand rubles under the administrative article on discrediting the Russian army. He informed the editors of Sibir.Realii about this.

According to local human rights activist Nadezhda Nyzovkina, the court considered the protocol on December 28, but did not notify her or Burlov himself about the meeting.

This is already the second punishment for the director for the article on discrediting in a month — on December 6, the Ulan-Ude Railway Court fined him 35 thousand rubles. Now they can initiate a criminal case against the film director for repeated discrediting of the Russian army. Burlov considers his pursuit to be politically motivated.

In October last year, Burlov reported that an investigation was being conducted against him under the criminal article of discrediting. The police station tried to contact the journalists of “People of Baikal” in order to talk to them about the director’s statements.

According to Sibir.Realia’s calculations, in 2023 the police tried to fine Artyom Burlov at least five times under the article on discrediting (twice the materials were returned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one case was closed due to the absence of an offense).

Burlov wrote that the residents of Buryatia “are being sent to be slaughtered by officials rotten from the inside, whose children are hiding abroad.” In September 2023, Burlov was fined 100,000 rubles in a criminal case for slandering relatives of Buryatia’s Minister of Culture Soelma Dagaeva. The director wrote that her relatives left for the USA to avoid mobilization.

• Artyom Burlov is a producer and director of a number of films. Until November 2023, he was a co-founder of the Union of Cinematographers of Buryatia (now the organization no longer exists).
• In July 2023, Burlov’s documentary film “Buryat in European cinema” was excluded from the program of the Pskov film festival “Western Gates”. According to the director, this is connected with his opposition activities.