The Basmanny District Court of Moscow extended until December 25 the arrest of the alleged administrators of the telegram channel “Project Scanner” Evgeny Moskvin, Viktor Malushenko and Alexey Slobodenyuk. Information about this appeared on the Moscow City Court website.

The young people are accused of large-scale fraud using their official position (Part 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). On August 4, the court sent them to pre-trial detention until September 25.

The Rotunda publication clarifies that Moskvin, Malushenko and Slobodenyuk are employees of the Patriot media group, whose board of trustees is headed by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. The publication's unnamed interlocutor believes that all three could be charged under the article of treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code), and the charge of fraud is only a pretext for arrest.

The Telegram channel “Project Scanner” with an audience of 200 thousand people published messages criticizing the Russian authorities. The channel's description says that it is engaged in "monitoring corrupt officials and idiots in the upper echelon of power." The publication Radio.Svoboda clarifies that during the 2019 protests in Moscow, the channel posted personal data of police officers and National Guardsmen spotted during the dispersal of the protests. Project journalist Mikhail Maglov told the Agency that the Telegram channel changed owners several times and is now being used to discredit the opposition.

A court in Moscow extended the arrest of the alleged administrators of the telegram channel “Project Scanner”