In the Oryol region, the court changed the sentence of the author of pro-Ukrainian poems

On May 30, the Oryol Regional Court changed the sentence of the poet and former school teacher Oleksandr Byvshev, who was previously sentenced to 330 hours of compulsory labor for the poem "For the Independence of Ukraine." about this Dmitry Krayukhin wrote on the Civil Forum website.

Instead of 330 hours of compulsory work, the court combined the punishment with the one imposed in 2015 and appointed 400 hours of compulsory work with deprivation of the right to work at school. However, the court decided to credit Byvshev with the term of serving the sentence under the verdict of the Kromsky District Court dated July 13, 2015. Thus, the court nevertheless reduced the number of compulsory works to 100 hours.

The prosecutor's office considered the previous sentence too lenient and, in an appeal submission, asked to assign a real prison term to the poet. Byvshev's lawyer Andrei Suchkov, in his appeal, demanded that the case be dismissed due to the absence of corpus delicti in the case.

• On April 9, the court sentenced Alexander Byvshev to 330 hours of compulsory work. In addition, he was banned from teaching for three years. The poet was found guilty under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred) due to the publication of the poem “For the Independence of Ukraine” on VKontakte.

According to Byvshev, the work is a "polemical response" to the poem of the same name by Joseph Brodsky. In September, the Sovetsky District Court of Orel recognized this poem as extremist, after which it was included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. In total, five criminal cases were opened against Byvshev, four of which were for poems, and one was for obstructing justice and conducting an investigation (Article 294 of the Criminal Code). He was brought in because of communication with journalists and the publication of details from the courtroom. against him The fifth criminal case was brought because of two quatrains “Russian Spirit” and “Mighty Heap”, which he published in a comment to the article “About People and Pigs” on the Orlets portal. * Due to pro-Ukrainian poetry, Byvshev has been under pressure since 2014. After the publication of the poem “To Ukrainian Patriots” on VKontakte, the poet was included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring, blocking his bank accounts. In 2015, a court banned him from working at the school for two years.