Russian man uses bills marked with anti-war statements to pay out fine for ‘discrediting’ Russian army

Sergey Filenko, a carpenter, writer and blogger from Russia’s Petrozavodsk, used bills marked with anti-war statements to pay out his fine for “discrediting” the Russian army, he wrote on Facebook.

The man published the photographs of the marked bills. He had to pay a fine of 30,000 rubles (€500), so he used six 5,000-ruble bills. Each one had the following signature: “One-sixth of carpenter Sergey Filenko’s fine for resisting absolute evil”.

He added other anti-war slogans, such as “No to war!”, “I forbid you from spending this on the war”, “Not a single kopeck for war and Putin. This money should only be spent on good deeds”.

“I was very concerned over the fact that honest money given to the aggressor state could be converted into bullets for killing people,” Filenko wrote.

He added that the attitude towards war is a “litmus test of ethics” after 24 February, and that the “special operation is a moral collapse of the Russian state”.

Filenko was issued a fine for “discrediting” the Russian army on 23 June. At the end of the court hearing, he scattered 324 glass balls in front of the judge, one for each child killed during the war in Ukraine.

Filenko told Novaya Gazeta. Europe that the judge and the police captain present at the court hearing had reacted calmly to that. When people started to collect the glass balls, the judge said that they could do it later, Sever.Realii news outlet reported.

This is not Filenko’s first fine for “discrediting” the Russian army. He was slapped with the same fine on 20 April. At the time, he refused to pay out the fine out of principle.

According to Russia’s new censorship laws, people who have been charged twice for “discrediting” the Russian army in one year may face criminal charges. Filenko could face up to three years behind bars.