Tuapse resident sentenced to forced labour for fakes about Russian Army
The court has sentenced Ilya Yuzhakov, a resident of the city of Tuapse, to three years of forced labour, finding him guilty of distributing fakes about the Russian Army. After the detention, law enforcers had forced Yuzhakov to record a video with “repentance".
Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was introduced on March 4, 2022, after the start of the Russian special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine. This article contradicts the Russian Constitution and the basic principles of law, the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD)* has stated. "The wording of the article does not allow defining in advance which statements are legitimate and which ones are prohibited. A citizen cannot know in advance which of his statements may be treated as false in this context," human rights defenders have stressed.
Ilya Yuzhakov’s messages and videos posted in a social network about missile and artillery strikes on Ukraine have been treated as false information, the human rights project “OVD-Info”** has reported.
After the detention of the above Tuapse resident, the channel entitled “Operative Summaries”, which is associated with law enforcers, posted a video, in which Yuzhakov said that he repented and recommended others "not to repeat his mistakes."
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported about the case of Altan Ochirov, an Elista administration employee, who was arrested under the same article in April 2022. The court sentenced him to three years in colony, but the Supreme Court (SC) of Kalmykia increased the term to five years.
*As reported on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the reason for including on March 1, 2024, the unregistered "Memorial" Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD) into the roster of foreign agents was the spread of "inaccurate information aimed at creating a negative image of the Russian Federation, as well as the Russian Armed Forces."
**Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 13, 2025 at 03:25 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: Caucasian Knot