A court in St. Petersburg has put Boris Romanov on the wanted list, accused in the case of “fake news” about the Russian army.

The Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg put Boris Romanov on the wanted list, accused of spreading “fakes” about the Russian army, after he did not come to the hearing. This was reported by Zaks.ru.

The state prosecutor applied to put him on the wanted list. The court also decided to take Romanov into custody in absentia.

The accused also did not come to the meetings of the St. Petersburg City Court on September 7 and 16 , at which the prosecutor’s office’s complaint against the decision to replace Romanov’s detention in a pre-trial detention center with a ban on certain actions was considered.

The man was taken into custody on May 11 under the article on disseminating deliberately false information about the Russian army based on political hatred (clause “d”, part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). On July 28, he was released from the pre-trial detention center under a ban on certain activities.

A criminal case was opened against Romanov because of a video published on VKontakte: in the video, a man similar to Romanov congratulated participants in a meeting of municipal deputies on Ukraine’s victory in the war. When asked what they were talking about, the man spoke about the results of negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian sides in Istanbul on March 29 and “quoted official reports about the retreat of Russian troops.”

• Since February 24—the first day of the “special operation” in Ukraine—residents of Russian cities have been going out to anti-war rallies every day and talking about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 270 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our guide .
• Article 207.3 (Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way the authorities responded to anti-war speeches and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that does not come from official Russian sources. The maximum penalty under this article is 15 years in prison.