Some recent news from the Russian human rights monitoring group OVD-Info.
19 May
The Miass city court in the Chelyabinsk region sentenced local resident Sergei Korneev to two years in a penal colony after he allegedly posted an anti- mobilisation message on a social media network. After allegedly suggesting that Russian soldiers break military equipment and weapons, Sergei was arrested back in February. He was found guilty of making a public call
to carry out activities against the security of the Russian Federation.
16 May
Police in the city of Perm detained a local pensioner Alexander N, who was selling his own books and speaking out against the war. He was charged with discrediting the Russian army.
According to Beware the News, the police were informed about an elderly man selling ‘anti-Russian literature’ in a park on Soviet Army Street. The man ‘confirmed his anti-war position’ and was arrested. He later admitted self- publishing and selling three books about communism, Stalinism and the history of Russia. In one of them he compared the policies of Stalin and Hitler.
10 May
The soviet district court of Voronezh fined 68-year-old pensioner Lyudmila Zatsepina 15,000 rubles for discrediting the Russian army. According to the police and the court, Lyudmila had written on the social media network VKontakte: ‘I am ashamed and hurt that the whole world now calls us occupiers and fascists.’
9 May Victory Day holiday
In Kursk, the security forces detained Anastasia Korshunova, who had come to Theater Square with a poster saying: ‘Peace to Ukraine. Freedom of the Russian Federation. I am against war!’ She was released without charge.
In Moscow, the security forces detained Alexander Poskonny, who went to the Tverskaya metro station with the flag of Ukraine. According to Alexander, the police beat him on arrest and then again in the police van. He was charged with discrediting the Russian army
In Moscow, the security forces detained and then released Diana Salikova, who had laid flowers at a monument to Lesya Ukrainka (1871 – 1913), one of Ukraine’s best-known authors and feminist activists.