The Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg arrested programmer Nikolai Veprikov in absentia in the case of military “fakes.” OVD-Info reports this with reference to lawyer Igor Skachko.
According to the lawyer, the St. Petersburg resident was also put on the wanted list — investigators believe that he is in Georgia. The preventive measure was chosen for two months from the moment of extradition or detention in Russia. The programmer is accused of publicly disseminating false information about the armed forces motivated by political hatred (clause “e” of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). Initially, he was charged with Part 1 of the same article.
The persecution of Veprikov became known in June, when he was detained at the exit from the MFC, where he received a foreign passport. The man's home was searched, after which he was sent to a pre-trial detention center. In July, the court released the programmer from custody, and upon leaving the special detention center he was given a written undertaking not to leave.
The reason for criminal prosecution was two publications by Veprikov on VKontakte, which contained links to YouTube videos about the consequences Russian invasion of Ukraine. The programmer also said that since the beginning of the full-scale war, he has limited access to his page on this social network.
“What kind of “publicity” are you talking about? in this case there may be a question, I do not understand. Subscribers can't even repost my posts. And how the employees of the Center «E» gained access to them — another interesting question,” the Sever.Realii publication quoted Veprikov’s words.