A programmer from the Irkutsk region was arrested under an article about “illegal influence” on critical infrastructure

The Kirovsky District Court of Irkutsk arrested for two months 35-year-old resident of Bratsk Alexander Levchishin, who worked as a programmer in a local hospital. He is accused of “using programs designed to unlawfully influence critical information infrastructure, causing grave consequences” (Part 5 of Article 274.1 of the Criminal Code). The meeting took place on August 6, the press service told Mediazona.

An acquaintance of Levchishin told Mediazona that FSB officers detained the programmer at the end of July: “He was detained somewhere at the end of July in Bratsk. They came to the apartment with a search. They came from the FSB. He was kept in Bratsk for a week, then transferred to Irkutsk. He is survived by elderly parents: his mother is disabled, his father has cancer,” he wrote.

“Mediazona” was able to contact Alexander’s father, Vadim Levchishin, who confirmed his detention and arrest, but he himself did not know what specific charges were being brought against his son - neither the security forces nor the appointed lawyer provided this information to the parents.

“First we came to work, and then we came home, and we were at a loss - old, elderly, sick people, I have cancer, my wife is also barely a soul in her body. We couldn’t really demand anything specifically legally, some kind of documents and so on,” says Levchishin’s father. - Well, they wrote everything here, and we stood and waited like fools. There were supposedly witnesses there, a search, they took away laptops, took away phones, took away bank cards. There were a lot of epithets. Here he was accused of being a traitor, an extremist, and passing on information.”

Vadim Levchishin also doesn’t know what exactly his son is accused of: “Transferring some secret information, although he actually worked in a medical institution. Well, I had some contacts, connected with the Northern Military District. I don’t know, he didn’t even serve. Well, as if he was conveying some information about someone and something. Well, maybe, I don’t know, there was some kind of provocation, maybe something else. We didn't notice anything. I can’t even wrap my head around this whole thing.”

After the search, the security forces took Levchishin away without telling his parents exactly where, but the man’s father says, “it’s like the FSB is in town.” The relatives called there in the evening and were informed that the detainee was released after “a peaceful talk.”

“[They say]: “He left, look for the police.” We went to the police... Then somehow they found out that he was in a temporary detention facility,” says the father of the accused.

On the website of the Bratsk City Court there is a case card , according to which on July 27 they examined the administrative protocol drawn up against Levchishin on petty hooliganism (Article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). His parents know nothing about this.

“He was there, they gave him parcels, a phone number so cheap that he could talk according to these rules. But they didn’t give him anything,” says the programmer’s father. “Then the day before yesterday, I think, they called: “but he’s not there, we let him go, go to the police.” We're going to the police, the police don't know anything. Then they gave him a call, he said: “I’m in Irkutsk, at the FSB.” There was either a trial or something, and they arrested me for two months.”

The article under which Levchishin is accused provides for up to 10 years in prison. In June, a court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced local resident Igor Bayandin to two years in a penal colony and a fine of half a million rubles on such charges. He was found guilty in the case of attacks on the websites of Russian companies and banks. According to the case materials, Bayandin did this “because he had a negative attitude towards the military action carried out by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine.”

In May, in the same case, the Rostov Regional Court sentenced Evgeny Kotikov to three years in a penal colony, and he was also ordered to pay a fine of 800 thousand rubles. The FSB claimed that the programmer “took the side of Ukraine” and joined a group of hackers whose actions led to the blocking of the websites of the Ministry of Defense and the presidential administration.