The court in Gelendzhik has begun hearing the case against opposition blogger Vadim Kharchenko. The case file is on the court's website.
According to information on the court's website, Kharchenko is charged with three counts of repeated discrediting of the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), four counts of slander combined with an accusation of a person committing a crime against sexual inviolability and sexual freedom of the individual or a grave or especially grave crime (Part 5 of Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code), one count of calls for extremism on the Internet (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code) and one count of insulting the feelings of believers (Part 1 of Article 148 of the Criminal Code). Previously, only one charge was known - under the article on repeated discrediting of the army in connection with the video about the surrender of Kherson.
Kharchenko and his lawyer were unable to answer questions about the essence of the charges from people who came to court, apparently due to a non-disclosure agreement, writes the Caucasian Knot.
The first meeting took place on February 1. The audience was not allowed to attend.
According to the project "Support for political prisoners. Memorial", the blogger has been under house arrest since February 2, 2023. About ten days after this date, public information about the criminal case began to appear . Initially, the reason for the prosecution of Kharchenko was a video entitled "Kherson surrendered? Who is to blame? Russian troops are leaving Kherson. Shoigu Surovkin Stremousov Saldo" on the YouTube channel "Personal opinion".
- In his video blog, Kharchenko criticizes the authorities and talks a lot about political criminal cases, detentions at public events, problems of the Krasnodar Territory and other regions. In 2017 and 2019, he was attacked by unknown persons: the second time, he received bullet and knife wounds. In 2018, unknown persons burned his car, and in December 2020, security forces searched the blogger's home in a case of slander against the mayor of Gelendzhik, Alexei Bogodistov.
- Article 280.3 (Public actions aimed at discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 — this is how 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. The maximum penalty under the article is five years in prison.