“Information is in my blood”: “Mediazona” talked to people who complain to the security forces about their fellow citizens

Mediazona journalists talked to several people who, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, have been writing denunciations against Russian writers, scientists, military personnel, and ordinary citizens. In a conversation with the publication, they expressed confidence that their actions help the state.

One of the scammers is a 40-year-old resident of an unnamed million-plus city. The woman claims that she has a higher education, and that she previously taught at a university and college, and now works on a non-permanent basis. She boasted to Mediazone that from February 24, 2022 to April 13 this year, she wrote 922 denunciations. She compares her activities "with the use of submarines to destroy enemy ships."

The woman said that she often watches interviews with Russian prisoners and tries to identify those who voluntarily surrendered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and “spread lies about a special military operation in captivity.” The scammer passes information about these people to the Russian authorities for the initiation of criminal cases. In addition, in two days she watches more than 20 hours of videos on YouTube channels of the media, recognized in Russia as “foreign agents”, and notes on the videos Russian citizens who give comments to journalists and at the same time live in the country.

“I rarely write denunciations about those who left Russia, since the authorities will not be able to attract them anyway (besides, those who fled actually lose the ability to somehow participate in the Russian protest movement due to worries in a new place). But those who remained in Russia are potential targets for denunciations, since they can be punished: fined, fired, ”the woman wrote to Mediazone.

She claims that she does not receive any remuneration for her activities. The woman also said that “denunciation is in her blood”: “My grandfather, born in 1922 ... was a Soviet officer at the front from 1942 to 1945. He was a secret agent of the NKVD, about which he spoke frankly to me. I even know how he signed denunciations. I happened to live with him in the same apartment for almost 20 years, and he actively used the complaints tool to get one thing or another from the authorities. I had to help him with this, ”recalls the woman.

Another scammer that Mediazona talked to is Sergey Chmykhun, a digger from St. Petersburg. He complained to the police about his friend Oleg Belousov, who wrote a comment on Vkontakte calling Putin a traitor and a war criminal. Belousov was ultimately found guilty under the article on military "fakes" and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison. The court was not embarrassed by the fact that Belousov had a third disability group and a 22-year-old son who, for health reasons, needs constant care.

In a conversation with Mediazona, Chmykhun said that he wrote a denunciation of Belousov, "considering such behavior unacceptable." “As a patriot of Russia, who tried all methods except burying his opponent in the ground, I, of course, could not let him continue these outrages,” he said.

According to the digger, he is now engaged in “helping the Donbass”: he “prints around the clock” on a home 3D printer equipment for the militia, for example, ampoules for medicines.

"Mediazona" lists several well-known cases when Russians became defendants in criminal cases about "fake" denunciations. For example, the chairman of the HOA and a ninth-grader passing by complained about a 77-year-old pensioner who pasted an anti-war leaflet in the entrance of a house in Petrozavodsk.

After a denunciation of eighth grade students in Penza, an English teacher was sentenced to five years on probation. Olesya Krivtsova, a student from Arkhangelsk, was denounced by classmates and became a defendant in a criminal case about “fakes”. She recently escaped from house arrest abroad.

In just six months of the war, the Russians wrote about 145,000 denunciations of "fakes" about the Russian army, journalists write, citing Roskomnadzor data.

Source: Mediazona

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