Activist Dmitry Skurykhin was arrested on charges of discrediting the army

The court in the Leningrad region sent activist Dmitry Skurikhin to pretrial detention in connection with the second case brought against him about the so-called discrediting of the Russian army. This was reported by “Network Freedoms”, whose lawyer Dmitry Gerasimov represents the interests of the activist.

Skurikhin was detained on Saturday, he spent the night in the ICU. On February 24 – the anniversary of the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine – Dmytro Skurykhin knelt down with a “Sorry Ukraine” poster in his shop in the village of Russko-Vysotskoe.

Skurikhin regularly places inscriptions criticizing the actions of the Russian authorities at his store. In May of last year, he was fined under the administrative article on discrediting the army, and then a criminal case was opened, accusing him of the so-called repeated discrediting. The reason for this was the poster “You are going to hell with your burial”, which the activist also placed in his shop. According to Sever.Realii, a restraining order was imposed on him in this case in the form of a ban on certain actions.

The current case is already the second criminal case of “repeated discrediting” against one person. Apparently, this is the first such case in Russia. The case threatens up to three years of imprisonment.

• Articles about criminal and administrative liability for “discrediting” and “fakes” about the army appeared in March 2022, after the start of a full-scale war with Ukraine. Judging by law enforcement practice, the authorities can mean any information that contradicts the official position of the Ministry of Defense by fakes, and by discrediting – any statement condemning the war, even without mentioning Ukraine (for example, “No war”). Human rights activists called these articles “the actual introduction of military censorship.”