The St. Petersburg City Court has increased the prison term of documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev to seven years in an appeal in the case of military "fakes", RusNews reports .
In March, the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Korolev to three years in a general regime penal colony in the case of military "fakes" spread for political reasons (paragraph "d" of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The convicted man was also banned from using social media for four years. Earlier, during the debate on February 20, the prosecutor asked for Korolev to be sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from using social media for four years.
The case against Korolev was first reported on July 12, 2022, when his home was searched. The reason was his VKontakte posts about the events in Bucha, Borodyanka, and Donetsk. On July 13 of that year, the man was sent to a pretrial detention center. Given the time he spent in the pretrial detention center, Vsevolod Korolev was supposed to be released in two weeks.
Before his arrest, Korolev was filming a documentary about artist Sasha Skochilenko, another defendant in the "anti-war case." At one of the hearings, a prosecution witness refuted the investigators' claims that he had independently contacted the authorities with a demand to check Korolev's publications. According to the witness, he was called in for questioning because of a "like" he had given to the defendant's post.
"If we equate knowingly false information with something that contradicts the official position of the Ministry of Defense, we create tension between moral and legal norms. Well, I don't know of any moral norm that would require me, knowing all this information, to sit and remain silent. That would be wrong! Citizens have responsibilities. I consider it my responsibility. Because that's how it should be. Because it's all wrong. It's very simple, after all," Korolev said in court.
- Since February 24, 2022 — the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — residents of Russian cities have been taking part in anti-war protests and talking about the tragedy online every day. Anti-war speeches and statements are becoming grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 950 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protests 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 — this is how 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 the article is 15 years in prison.