Russian politician Ilya Yashin faces criminal charges under ‘fake news’ law

Russian politician Ilya Yashin faces charges under the “fake news” law that criminalises “public dissemination of false information” about the Russian army, his attorney Vadim Prokhorov stated on Facebook.

“The investigator called me right now to inform me that a search is being carried out at his home. I am on my way there,” the attorney said.

On 28 June, a Moscow court arrested Yashin for 15 days for disobeying a police officer. His term of arrest ends tonight.

“The report against me was compiled by a police sniper (!) Alexey Mitrofankin. He claims that I grabbed his uniform, harassed him with swear words, and pushed him with my hands,” the politician wrote in a Telegram post. According to Yashin, in fact, he was sitting on a park bench with his friend Irina Babloyan when he was approached by three police officers and “quietly brought to their car with the letter Z (a symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine — translator’s note) on the windshield”.

In May, a Moscow court slapped a 90,000-ruble (about €1,500) fine on Yashin for “discrediting the use of the Russian armed forces” for publishing a picture of a woman carrying an anti-war poster during a US protest against the Vietnam War. He was also fined over a YouTube stream.