The Kineshma city court fined Vladimir Lyubimov, deputy of the Ivanovo Regional Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, a member of the state building committee, for 30 thousand rubles under an article about “discrediting” the army. This was announced by lawyer Oscar Cherdzhiev to the Ivanovo Region Telegram channel.
The reason was the post on VKontakte. He published the flag of the Russian Federation with the caption "gravement of men, widowhood of women, orphanization of children." Lyubimov pleaded not guilty in court and stated that the case file presented a “falsified collage”, which was published on behalf of the deputy in “pro-government publics”.
According to the lawyer, “large-scale harassment” was launched against Lyubimov after this publication, and “public activists” controlled by the authorities wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies against him. The defense asked the court to appoint linguistic and political expertise in the case, to call witnesses who may have given false testimony, and to send a request to VKontakte in order to confirm the fact that the publication was posted from fake accounts. The court refused to satisfy all the petitions in order not to miss the statute of limitations, which expires on April 16, the lawyer said.
Russians denounce neighbors, acquaintances, teachers and even their relatives to the police. Following the emergence of new articles against the background of the war in Ukraine, fines were reported for "discrediting" the army for talking on the street and in cafes, posting on social networks and wearing yellow and blue clothes due to the fact that they are on the Ukrainian flag. In addition, a Russian was recently arrested for 14 days on charges of distributing “extremist materials” after being denounced by a subway passenger who peeped into his smartphone.