The author of Kirov’s anthem was sentenced in absentia to 5 years in prison in the case of “fakes”

The court in Kirov sentenced the composer Prokhor Protasov, who wrote the city’s anthem, to five years in a general regime colony in absentia because of his posts about the war on social networks. This is reported by “Mediazona”.

The state prosecution asked the court to sentence the composer to nine years in prison and for four years leave him the right to administer and create websites.

The musician was found guilty of spreading so-called fakes about the Russian army due to his posts in VKontakte about the Russian missile attack on the shopping center in Kremenchug, which killed more than 20 people, and the mass murder of civilians in Buche. Protasov wrote that the reason for the criminal case was the videos and photos posted by him of “Meduza”, “Nastoyaschech vremy” and blogger and politician Maksym Kats.

The Russian authorities consider the publication of any information about the war in Ukraine that differs from the version of the Ministry of Defense of Russia to be fake.

In August of last year, Protasov’s VKontakte page was blocked at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, and a month later, the police came to search his home. Soon, the Ministry of Internal Affairs declared him a federal wanted man. Now the composer lives in Canada and is studying for a doctorate at the University of Toronto.

Commenting on the decision of the Idel.Realii court, Protasov said that he was not surprised by it. “After the shock I experienced when the war in Ukraine started, nothing shocks me anymore.” The musician does not plan to return to Russia in the near future.

• After the beginning of the full-scale armed invasion of the Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine, laws were introduced in Russia on criminal and administrative liability for so-called fakes about the Russian army and discrediting its actions. By the end of the year, the authorities opened more than 300 criminal cases under the relevant articles, essentially persecuting citizens for their anti-war stance. Dozens of sentences have already been handed down, many of them involving long terms of imprisonment. Thus, the opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sent to the colony for eight and a half years, and the journalist Maria Ponomarenko – for six.