On August 10, the Fourth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction approved a sentence of five years in prison for civil activist and ex-employee of the Elista mayor's office Altan Ochirov in the case of publications about the war in Ukraine. Information about this is published on the court's website.
In October, the Elista City Court found Ochirov guilty of disseminating deliberately false information about the Russian Army by a group of people and motivated by hatred or enmity (clauses “b” and “e”, Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The court then considered it possible to give him a sentence below the lower limit, sentencing the activist to three years in prison.
The prosecutor's office filed an appeal against this decision, and the Supreme Court upheld the prosecution's protest, excluding from the verdict the possibility of imposing a sentence below the lower limit. As a result, on December 23, Ochirov was sentenced to five years in prison with an additional ban on holding state and municipal positions for a period of three years.
Ochirov was charged with distributing a video on the Volny Ulus telegram channel about the shooting of a car with pensioners by the Russian military, as well as reports about the sinking of a landing ship, looting and the number of losses from Russia in the first days of the invasion of Ukraine.
Ochirov himself denies that he was involved in all of the listed publications. He refused to admit guilt. The man has been in custody since April.
Kalmyk activist Erentsen Dolyaev, who is also being persecuted under the article about “fake news” about the Russian army due to publications in “Volny Ulus,” claims that Ochirov stopped using the channel several months before his arrest. It was also previously reported that “unidentified persons” were involved in the case. According to Network Freedoms, the investigation became interested in active participants in the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk People , among whom was Dolyaev.
- Since February 24, 2022—the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—residents of Russian cities have been holding anti-war protests every day and talking about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 600 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographic .
Article 207.3 (Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way the authorities responded to anti-war speeches and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that does not come from official Russian sources. The maximum penalty under this article is 15 years in prison.