In Tomsk, police detained a resident of the Kirovsky district of the city in a criminal case of “discrediting” the army. By a court decision, he was sent to a pre-trial detention center, the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.
The case was opened due to posts by a Tomsk resident on an unnamed social network (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). In the video of the arrest, the investigator shows the man his account from his phone, but the device’s screen is blurred. The mobile interface of the social network is similar to VKontakte.
It was possible to open a case due to the fact that the man had already been fined under a similar administrative article about “discrediting” the army (20.3.3 of the Administrative Code) due to a single picket in square with an anti-war poster in July 2022. He was fined 35 thousand rubles by the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk.
This court fined only three men under the article on “discrediting”. Probably, the press release from the Ministry of Internal Affairs is talking about Vyacheslav Polkanov. He received the fine in July 2022. The other two fined were given different amounts. In the summer and fall of 2021, Tomsk police also tried five times to charge Polkanov under the article on participation in an uncoordinated rally (Part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code), but the judges returned the materials back due to errors. What this was connected with is unknown.