A case was opened against a resident of St. Petersburg for painting “offensive inscriptions” about the war on the walls of a local university and two churches

The Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region reported on the detention of a 56-year-old resident of the Kalininsky district of the city in the case of applying “offensive inscriptions about the conduct of a military training exercise” on the walls of local buildings.

A criminal case was opened against the detainee for vandalism (Part 2 of Article 214 of the Criminal Code) and damage to cultural heritage sites (Article 243 of the Criminal Code). During the search, his mobile phone, laptop and other equipment were confiscated.

According to investigators, at the beginning of the year the man left “offensive inscriptions” about the war in Ukraine on the walls of the temple on Gzhatskaya Street and two other buildings recognized as cultural heritage sites: the Polytechnic University and its church. Fontanka writes that the detainee wrote “University for murderers” on the Polytechnic building, and “ROC for murderers” on the walls of religious buildings.

The press release from the Ministry of Internal Affairs also said that the suspect “had been communicating with curators from the territory of Ukraine for some time and was preparing to join a terrorist organization.” According to Fontanka, it was the “Freedom Russia” legion. According to the publication, on the man’s computer, security forces also found correspondence with accounts registered to Ukrainian numbers and designated as “APU”, “OVIR of Ukraine” and so on.

The detention itself took place on February 14. The publication 78.RU published a photograph of the person involved in the case with blurred eyes and reported that in the early 1990s he worked in the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Khabarovsk Territory. Fontanka said that at first he was a police officer, then a criminal investigation operative

Mediazona found out that with the same photo a page was registered on VKontakte in the name of Konstantin Podoshvelev. Judging by information on social networks, the man is 56 years old and was last online on February 14. His subscriptions include a community for learning the Ukrainian language and the “Typical Policeman” public page.

Updated at 5:40 p.m. Added information from Fontanka.