The number of criminal cases of discrediting and fakes about the army exceeded 400

Since the appearance in the criminal code of new articles on the discrediting of the actions of the Russian army and the spread of fakes about it, 402 relevant cases have been initiated, said the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, in an interview with the state news agency TASS.

In the same conversation, Bastrykin promised that citizens who had left Russia and spoke out against the war, in the event of their return, would be prosecuted, since, according to the head of the SC, their position discredits the actions of the Armed Forces and is connected with the desire to please the politics of unfriendly countries.

Bastrykin also reminded that new amendments to the criminal code came into force in January, which allow confiscation of property from those convicted of discrediting and forgery.

On Wednesday, another verdict was handed down in Russia on charges of military fakes. The Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced the emigrant activist Boris Romanov to six years in prison in absentia. The reason for initiating the case was a video from 2022 in which Romanov, talking about the results of negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian sides in Istanbul, “quoted official reports about the withdrawal of Russian troops” and congratulated Ukraine on its victory.

• In March 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia introduced laws on criminal and administrative liability for so-called fakes about the Russian army and discrediting its actions. In a year and a half, the authorities initiated thousands of administrative and hundreds of criminal cases under these articles. Dozens of citizens were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. According to human rights activists, military censorship has actually been introduced in Russia.