Pskov officials and the activist who complained about them are being checked for fakes for their words about ventilators

The Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Pskov opened an administrative case on fakes (part 9 of article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) against employees of the administration of the Pskov region because of their statements about the number of ventilators. The complaint was filed by a local activist, who was charged with a similar case for criticizing the words of officials. This is reported by the publication "7 × 7".

At the end of April, an activist of the Yabloko party, Nikolai Kuzmin, filed a statement with the police with a request to check the words of officials regarding the provision of ventilators in the regions. According to him, Governor Mikhail Vedernikov, First Deputy Governor Vera Yemelyanova, and Head of the Regional Health Committee Marina Garashchenko allegedly "repeatedly manipulated" the numbers on the number of ventilators during official statements.

At the same time, an administrative case was also opened against Kuzminkin himself earlier - under a similar article on the abuse of freedom of the mass media (part 9 of article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). The reason was the publication of Kuzmin on VKontakte, where, according to doctors, he spoke about the lack of ventilators and specialists in the Pskov infectious diseases hospital.

“The fact of initiating a case against the regional administration does not surprise me, since there is an invoice with links to official press conferences of the region's top officials and even a verified Instagram of the governor. But it seems to me that the further course of the case will be put on the brakes, ”the publication quotes Kuzmin as saying.

• In 2019, the commission of the Pskov City Duma to consider the issues of concluding the execution of contracts and the provision of services with assistants to deputies decided not to conclude an agreement with Kuzmin in connection with "the presence of facts of violation of public order, violation of federal law." The court upheld this decision.