Hundreds of Russians are facing charges for speaking out against the war in Ukraine since a repressive law was passed last month that outlaws the spread of 'false information' about the invasion and disparaging the military.
Sweeping arrests stifled antiwar protests, turning them from a daily event in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg into rare occurrences barely attracting any attention.
The first publicly known criminal cases over “fakes” targeted public figures like Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a Russian-language cookbook author and popular blogger living abroad, and Alexander Nevzorov, a TV journalist, film director and former lawmaker. St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skolichenko also faces up to 10 years in prison on the same charge: She replaced price tags in a grocery store with antiwar flyers. On Wednesday, a court ordered Skolichenko to pretrial detention for 1 1/2 months.
Marat Grachev, director of a shop that repairs Apple products in Moscow, similarly got in trouble when he displayed a link to an online petition titled, “No to war” on a screen in the shop. Many customers expressed support when they saw it, but one elderly man demanded it be taken down, threatening to report Grachev to the authorities.
“The war brought about so many unbearable challenges, grief and tears, that it’s impossible to forget. There is no forgiveness and justification for those who once again are harbouring aggressive plans,” Putin had said, according to the Kremlin website.
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