The Sosnovsky District Court of the Tambov Region sentenced former military man Oleg Borisenko, who poured paint on a poster with the letters Z and V, to six years of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 150 thousand rubles. reports . SOTA
The man was given a fine under the article on repeated discrediting of the Russian army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), and a suspended sentence in connection with the charge of illegal possession of explosives (Part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code). At the same time, under the article on possession of explosives, the prosecutor asked Borisenko to sentence him to six years of real imprisonment, but the judge considered a suspended sentence a more acceptable punishment.
The case to discredit the army was opened in May 2023. According to SOTA, Borisenko poured paint on a poster with the letters Z and V because he considered them similar to the SS and Wehrmacht chevrons. They came to his home with a search and found gunpowder there, which became the reason for initiating a criminal case under Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code. According to the former military man, he bought the gunpowder legally for hunting, and by the time of the search the substance was already expired.
Investigators are currently conducting another criminal case against Borisenko to discredit the army. The reason was several videos of the man. In the first video, he called on the students of the military-patriotic club he founded not to go to war with Ukraine and called it criminal. In the second video, Borisenko turned to the governor of the Tambov region, Maxim Egorov, and invited him to go and look at the graves of the soldiers who died in Ukraine. SOTA clarified in a conversation with OVD-Info that this case is at the stage of preliminary investigation.
A case under Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code can be brought against those who have at least once been brought to justice under an administrative article on discrediting the army (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). In May 2022, a man was fined 30 thousand rubles under this article because of a sticker with a crossed out letter Z on the window of his car.
In May 2023, Borisenko was arrested for 15 days due to a fine for jaywalking that was not paid on time. On June 6, at the exit from the special detention center, Borisenko was detained and taken to the police department. The next day, the Oktyabrsky District Court sent him to a pre-trial detention center, and then the details of both criminal cases became known. In mid-June he was released from pre-trial detention center under house arrest; in October the court did not extend the measure.
In 2014–2015, Borisenko participated in military operations in the Donbass as part of the Wagner PMC. He also founded the military-patriotic club “Russian” and participated in the elections to the city duma in 2005 as a self-nominated candidate.
- 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 750 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographic .
- Article 280.3 (Public actions aimed at discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way the government 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. On March 14, 2023, the State Duma adopted amendments increasing the maximum penalty under this article, since then it has been seven years in prison.