A case has begun in Sochi against a local resident accused of organizing DDoS attacks during the 2011 protests.

The Lazarevsky District Court of Sochi began considering a criminal case against local resident Ivan Shuvalov, accused of organizing DDoS attacks during the 2011 protests. Shuvalov was charged under Part 1 of Article 273 of the Criminal Code - creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs. Opposition activist Alexander Valov reported this to Mediazona. According to him, the defendant Shuvalov was an activist in the pro-government organization “Young Guard of United Russia.”

Valov said that in 2011-2012, when protests against massive violations in the State Duma elections took place in Moscow and other Russian cities, DDos attacks began on his BlogSochi website.

“I started complaining to law enforcement agencies, wrote a statement to the police, the Investigative Committee, and even addressed a letter to Vladimir Putin. And it turned out that they were investigating this matter. On December 28, I received a text message saying that I was being called as a witness at the trial in this case,” says Valov.

Sochi activist Olga Noskovets also became a witness in the case against Shuvalov. “When our rallies were held, everyone who participated began to have problems with mobile communications, it was impossible to get through by phone, some kind of jammers were working,” she says. In addition, a remote access program was installed on Noskovets’ computer. “My system unit ended up burning down. He was already old, apparently he couldn’t stand it,” she says.

Another witness was the lawyer of the international human rights group “Agora” Alexander Popkov. “Some time ago we were called to the investigative department and interrogated. They asked different questions, whether we know, for example, journalist Evgeny Ermizin and deputy Viktor Teplyakov. The latter had previously supervised youth associations in Sochi. But, apparently, they are not in the case. Perhaps they didn’t collect evidence on them,” Popkov said.

The branch of the Young Guard in the Krasnodar Territory told Mediazona that Ivan Shuvalov was never officially a member of the youth association. “We have studied all the documents and can say for sure that such a person has never joined our organization,” the Young Guard representative emphasized.

Meanwhile, a Mediazona source, close to youth associations in Sochi in 2011-2012, claims that Shuvalov was close to the Young Guard and was even a member of the Youth Parliament of Sochi. “He was admitted to the youth parliament without elections and even had a privileged position there. Then Shuvalov was about 20 years old, he studied, if I’m not mistaken, at the Russian State University of Social Sciences. It is clear that now the Young Guard does not want to be associated with the organization, but I am sure that in some form he was listed,” explained the interlocutor of Mediazona.