A ban on discrediting convicts. The State Duma Protects "PMC Wagner" from "Fake"

The State Duma in an accelerated mode considers the third package of amendments on the “distribution of fakes” and “discrediting”. After its adoption in Russia, it will not be possible to publish any unofficial data not only about the regular army, but also about volunteers, mercenaries and former prisoners fighting against Ukraine as part of the Wagner PMC. The Mediazona signs this legislative initiative, which appeared after the public appeal of Yevgeny Prigozhin to Vyacheslav Volodin.

What deputies offer

Today it became known that the State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin introduced the amendments for the “discredit” of the army (20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses and 280.3 of the Criminal Code) and the distribution of “fakes” about the war (207.3 of the Criminal Code) for consideration of the parliament.

Firstly, the articles will expand. At first they concerned only the regular army, but soon their action was extended to the activities of any state bodies abroad.

The latest edition of the articles stipulates that protection against “fakes” and “discrediting” will also be provided with “volunteer formations, organizations or persons”, which “contribute to the fulfillment of the tasks assigned to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”.

Secondly, they will be tightened: if now the maximum punishment for the first part of the articles of the Criminal Code of Fakes and Discrediting is three years of imprisonment, then after the adoption of the amendments, the term will increase to five years that he transfers these crimes from the category of small severity to the middle.

“This makes it possible to put the accused into custody, increases the statute of limitations for holding to just six years,” commented the initiative of Volodin, head of the Agora human rights group Pavel Chikov. In addition, the maximum punishment under part 2 of article on “discrediting” is proposed to increase from five to seven years.

Volodin warned about the terms of up to 15 years for “discrediting volunteers”, but this does not mean that the punishment will really tighten: the terms of up to 15 years and are supposed to be part 3 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code (if the “fakes” about the army entailed “grave consequences”).

What is the catch

The deputies took and supplemented two old bills that were not related to “fakes” or “discredit”, but have already passed the first reading in the State Duma.

One of them expanded the list of protected objects, for the penetration of which the persecution threatens under Article 215.4 of the Criminal Code. The second made changes to part 5 of Article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses and prohibited the dissemination of information about the manufacture of ammunition. According to Volodin, on March 14, the bill will be adopted in the third reading, after which it will have to be approved by the Federation Council and President Putin.

“According to the regulations of the State Duma, a lot of time passes between the first and second reading, it cannot be reduced. And these lawmakers need to quickly, ”says Pavel Chikov. This common scheme has been used more than once by parliamentarians when the bill had to be adopted urgently. For example, this was the case with the law, which introduced the concepts of “mobilization” and “wartime” into the Criminal Code: initially it concerned the replacement of part of the term of imprisonment with a mild punishment.

How many Russians have already convicted of military "fakes" and "discrediting"

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office for 2022, the Investigative Committee investigated 187 criminal cases of military “fakes” against 149 people.

The statistics of the SK himself are somewhat different: the head of the department, Alexander Bastrykin, reported about 152 matters regarding 136 people, and under articles on “discrediting” and “fakes” in the aggregate.

The OVD-Info project cited its own calculations: 141 accused in cases of distribution of “fakes” and 52-“discrediting”.

“OVD-Info” provided “Mediazone” with its statistics on sentences under articles on “discrediting” and “fakes”: the courts have already made 36 decisions. The nine accused was appointed real imprisonment, the deadlines-from the six months of the penal colony for the Tyumen David Eichendorf up to eight and a half years for the politician Ilya Yashin . Six people received conditional terms, four were convicted in absentia, nine sentenced to a fine, six to correctional work, one to correctional work conditionally. In one case, the accused was sent for compulsory treatment, in the other the case was stopped by establishing supervision. Another sentence is unknown.

It would seem, what does Priguzhin have to do with it

All the criminal cases known today about “fakes” and “discrediting,” notes Pavel Chikov, “relate to the purely army.”

With a proposal to expand articles about “fakes” and “discredit” for volunteers, the owner of the “PMC Wagner” Evgeny Prigozhin spoke. In January, he turned to Volodin, offering to legislatively ban the “spread of fakes” about mercenaries from among the former prisoners and their “discrediting”.

Volodin reacted the next day, saying that he instructed to “urgently” develop amendments. A month later, he announced that amendments to the Criminal Code were amended by parliament.

At the same time, the wording in bills differs from the one that Prigozhin proposed: he wrote about “volunteers, including former convicts,” and wanted to introduce a separate article into the Criminal Code about their “discrediting”.

However, he thanked Volodin, but made another initiative: to bring out of the new articles “the highest command staff of the volunteer detachments, including the“ PMC Wagner ”” and officials of the Ministry of Defense.

“This is necessary to ensure the vowel and responsible execution of their powers. Otherwise, any public and constructive criticism of their actions will be able to entail prosecution, ”he added.

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev