"Human life is priceless, although in our country they do not think so"

63-year-old Mikhail Simonov was sentenced to seven years in colony for two posts about the war. "Mediazona" published his last word in court

On March 30, the Timiryazevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced 63-year-old Mikhail Simonov to seven years in colony, finding him guilty of spreading the "fakes" about the Russian army. The basis for the case was two posts of Simonov on VKontakte, in which he wrote about the bombing of Kyiv and the Drama Theater in Mariupol: “Killing children and women, we sing songs on the first channel. We, Russia, have become atheists. Forgive us, Lord ”and“ Russian pilots bomb children. ” "Mediazona" published the last word of Simonov in court.

Your honor, dear court! I understand that at the stage of the preliminary investigation, I pleaded guilty, answered all the investigator’s questions, at least those that I understood. Yes, on March 19, 2022 I was at the famous address, at home. I then ended a difficult two-month shift: I work in a restaurant car in long-distance trains. At that time, I led a rather closed lifestyle, came to my senses after hard work. Well, how he came to his senses - he drank a little too. The interlocutor I had a phone, I came across an EURONEWS news article - I already said that I was familiar with Euronews earlier. And in some state of the impulse, of course, I repeated what was said there.

What a rush was it? The impulse is that people are dying. I have always thought and now I think that human life is an unconditional value that should become priority, although in our country they do not think so. And they raised me like that.

Let me give you a small example from childhood, which I always remembered. My mother was still a little girl in the besieged Leningrad. She told how she brought the dead parents on the sled by the Neva to bury, how she later experienced this terrible Great Patriotic War, a world war and hoped that this was the last war. Such words are still spinning in my head - from the song, or something - "My dear, if there were no war." Mom said so too.

That was such a impulse. For me, it was a technological, maybe even a natural disaster, like an earthquake - that this is happening in the world, that people die, a large number of people. And human life should be a priority.

Yes, I posted it on my VKontakte page. I claim that VKontakte for me was only a repository of my photographs, personal, family. I have never led any special conversations there. Maybe with rare exceptions. The posts that I sometimes published there for myself, I usually then removed. How to remove these posts.

I was only moving the understanding that human life is priceless. Whoever died as a result of some events is not only the military, but, as I said, some disasters.

I grew up in a military family. My father was a military man and gave the life of the army, which was the predecessor of the current Russian. He was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, on my part, there was simply nothing to be a negative [to the army], it would still be that I would spit on my father’s grave.

In conclusion, I would like to say about my health. Unfortunately, the pre -trial detention center did not provide me with a certificate, although I wrote an application for a certificate from my medical card. It says that several months ago, several of my diseases worsened at once, that a neuropathologist was invited to me. This is a purely bureaucratic moment, so the court, of course, will not take into account, but, unfortunately, to me, an elderly man, my health issues will continue to take into account, especially serving such a long sentence, which the prosecutor asks.