The Krasnoturinsky City Court received materials from an administrative case about “discrediting” the army against the publishing group “VK-Media”. Mediazona drew attention to this.
VK-Media publishes print and online newspapers “Evening Krasnoturinsk”, “Evening Karpinsk”, “About Severouralsk” and “Globus”. What was the reason for drawing up the protocol (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code) is still unknown.
This is the first administrative case of “discrediting” the military, which will be considered by the Krasnoturinsky City Court, as follows from the database on its website. The meeting date has not yet been set.
In April 2022, VK-Media was fined 1.5 million rubles because of the anti-war covers of four newspapers: on March 2 they came out with the text “This madness must be stopped!” and a QR code that led to a petition against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the same day, police came to the newspaper offices in Severouralsk, Karpinsk, Krasnoturinsk and Serov and seized copies.
The publishing house was fined under the article on “fake news” (part 10.1 of article 13.15 of the Administrative Code). At that time, an article on “discrediting” the army had not yet been introduced into the Administrative Code.