Former employee of RT Baronova was fined for “discrediting”

Maria Baronova, a former employee of “Otkrytoy Rossii” and the RT TV channel, was fined a total of 70,000 rubles by the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow under two articles of the Administrative Code – on the so-called discrediting of the Russian army and on violation of the rules for holding rallies. This was reported by “Mediazona”. The fact that she was fined was confirmed by Baronova herself, according to her, she is still clarifying the amount.

In November last year, on the day when the Supreme Court of Russia declared the defunct international LGBT movement extremist, Baronova published a photo of herself, taken on Red Square in Moscow, in which she stands with a bag with the inscription “No war” and a phone with a rainbow flag on the screen . In January, it became known that two protocols were drawn up in her regard – on the discrediting of the army and participation in an uncoordinated action.

As “Mediazona” notes, in the case of “discrediting” the protocol turned out to be typical: the police pointed out the similarity of the words “No war” with the slogans once published on Instagram by the Vesna movement, recognized by the Russian authorities as extremist. Baronova said in court that since February 2022, she “freely carries” a bag with the words “No war” around Moscow. She also noted that she was not engaged in discrediting the army, but rather in “propaganda of non-traditional values”, however, she was not fined for the article about the so-called LGBT propaganda. According to Mediazona, she was fined 50,000 rubles for the article about discrediting the army, and 20,000 rubles for the article about uncoordinated actions.

• Baronova became famous during the protests in Moscow in 2011-2012 – she was an assistant to the then deputy of the State Duma Ilya Ponomarev and later became an accused in the so-called Bolotny case. She was amnestied and worked in Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s “Open Russia”, unsuccessfully ran for the State Duma in 2016. In 2019, Baronova got a job at RT. She left the channel in March 2022, according to her, because of disagreement with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. She still declares her opposition to the war, but also criticizes Ukraine and the West.