Cossack oppositionist Melikhov sentenced to a year of restriction of freedom

The Podolsk City Court sentenced Cossack Vladimir Melikhov, accused of illegal possession of weapons, to a year of restriction of freedom. His assistant reported this to Mediazona.

The prosecutor's office requested two years in prison for him. Melikhov himself maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

The Cossack was accused under Part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code. During searches of his home in 2015, ammunition and several pistols were found. Melikhov insisted that the cartridges had been planted on him, and that the pistols were museum pieces and unsuitable for shooting.

He gained the greatest fame as the creator of the memorial complex “Don Cossacks in the fight against the Bolsheviks.” This memorial in the Rostov region has been repeatedly mentioned as a “monument to Ataman Krasnov,” but Melikhov himself insists that in reality the sculpture, which many take for a monument to the Ataman who collaborated with the Nazis, demonstrates a collective image of a Cossack, and not Krasnov specifically.

During the campaign before the State Duma elections in 2016, Melikhov collaborated with PARNAS; party chairman Mikhail Kasyanov and party member Andrei Zubov came to his trial.