The jury found the Ivanovo resident guilty of rehabilitating Nazism. He wrote about the siege of Leningrad

A jury at a meeting of the Ivanovo Regional Court found local architect Sergei Volkov guilty under the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism (clause “c” of Part 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the SOVA Information and Analytical Center.

The next hearing, at which the verdict is likely to be announced, will take place on July 14.

A jury had already tried Volkov's case, but a judge dismissed it in March. First, he announced the need to reformulate the questions to the jury, then pointed out the possible bias of one of the jurors, and then decided to dissolve the jury altogether due to the fact that the assessors were allegedly discussing their verdict, but not announced, and someone heard it from the court staff. Volkov's defense believed that the board found the man innocent.

A criminal case against Sergei Volkov was opened in May 2022. According to the prosecution, in 2021, Volkov published two posts in the telegram channel “Slavic-Pagan Culture Today” with arguments that Joseph Stalin “abandoned” Leningrad, and the USSR authorities were no less to blame than the Germans for the outbreak of World War II.

According to the examination, these publications contradict “the scientific paradigm of the Great Patriotic War in Russian historiography” and “contain attempts to discredit the highest military-political leadership of the USSR for inaction, cowardice or inhumane actions towards its population.”

• After the start of the war with Ukraine, the number of cases under the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism (Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code) increased sharply - presumably, security forces use this article to put pressure on those who could potentially oppose the “special operation” in Ukraine and its “denazification.” According to the SOVA Information and Analytical Center, many cases under Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code are initiated unlawfully and should be classified under other articles of the Criminal Code or resolved within the framework of civil rather than criminal proceedings.