A resident of Krasnodar was sentenced to six years in prison for posts about Mariupol and Buche

A court in Krasnodar sentenced Aleksandr Somryakov to six years in a general regime prison for posts about the killing of civilians in Ukraine. The sentence was handed down in April, yesterday the regional court recognized it as legal. This was reported by the press service of the regional court.

Somryakov was found guilty under the article of spreading so-called fakes about the Russian army based on political hatred. He was also banned from publishing on the Internet for four years.

According to the press release, the 37-year-old resident of Krasnodar wrote posts on an unnamed social network about the shelling by Russian military of a maternity hospital and a drama theater in Mariupol, as well as about the “mass slaughter of civilians” and the “murder of 260 people in the small town of Bucha.”

The publication dedicated to Buche was probably taken from the Telegram channel of publicist Alexander Nevzorov. He published a post with these words on April 3, 2022, when the Russian army retreated from the suburbs of Kyiv and the Ukrainian military entered there.

The posts were noticed by employees of the FSB regional office, who later detained Somryakov.

The court claimed that Somryakov partially admitted his guilt and stated that he published “false information in order to get “more subscribers, likes and comments.”

• In Russia, dozens of criminal and hundreds of administrative cases have been initiated against those who spread information about the murders of civilians during the Russian occupation of Bucha near Kyiv. Many defendants were sentenced to long prison terms.

• The Russian authorities call any information about the war in Ukraine different from the version of the Ministry of Defense of Russia “fakes”. An article about the so-called fakes about the army was added to the Criminal Code shortly after the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The punishment for it can be up to 10 years of imprisonment or a fine of up to five million rubles.
• According to “OVD-Info” estimates, criminal cases for anti-war stance have been initiated against at least 625 people, 180 of them are accused of “fakes” about the Russian army.