Repeat, as farce. Moscow prosecutors pursue wrong man over “collaboration” with banned news site

Prosecutors in Moscow have attempted to penalise a complete stranger for “participating” in the work of the independent news outlet Meduza, banned as an “undesirable organisation”—only for a court to dismiss the case when it was revealed they had charged the wrong man and didn’t think twice. The error was first discovered by Mediazona.

The Chertanovsky district prosecutor filed an administrative charge for involvement in an “undesirable organisation”, a designation that carries a total ban in Russia, against a man with no connection to the media. Details of the error emerged in a ruling by Judge Elena Trushechkina, who has since sent the case back to the prosecution.

The case against the man was based on a post from Meduza’s Telegram channel. The post read: “At the request of Meduza, historian Alexey Uvarov explains how Pavel Syutkin and his wife Olga created a humanistic approach to the study of Russian cuisine, placing the difficult lives of the majority of Russians at the centre of their research.”

The authorities brought the case against Alexey Dmitrievich Uvarov. However, when the man appeared in court, he explained that he was not a historian, had no involvement with the publication, and did not even have any social media accounts.

He suggested to the court that the prosecution had likely intended to target Alexey Konstantinovich Uvarov, a historian with a different patronymic and date of birth. The Ministry of Justice had designated the latter a “foreign agent” in November 2025, specifically citing his contributions to “undesirable” publications.

According to the court ruling, the prosecutor present at the hearing remained unmoved, arguing that the guilt of Alexey Dmitrievich Uvarov had been proven.

Judge Trushechkina disagreed, concluding that the identity of the person actually named in the protocol had not been established.