The Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded the arrest in absentia in the case of “discrediting” the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code) of former football player Evgeniy Savin, who runs the KraSava sports blog on YouTube. Mediazona found information about this in the files of the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow.
It is unknown when exactly the meeting will take place.
In mid-February, the Ministry of Internal Affairs put Savin on the wanted list. Last September, RIA Novosti and the Beware the News project, citing their sources, already reported that a criminal case had been opened against the athlete for “discrediting” the army because of an interview he gave to journalist Ksenia Sobchak in April 2023. The state agency wrote that, according to security officials, in the video the athlete “spoke negatively about the Russian army and condemned its actions.”
To initiate a criminal case for “discredit,” it is necessary that the person has previously been fined under a similar administrative protocol (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). A year ago, Savin was fined 50 thousand rubles under this article. “It’s a rare occasion when I’m proud of myself,” the footballer wrote then.
Evgeny Savin played as a striker for various Russian football clubs — Khimki, Amkar, Krylya Sovetov, Tom and Ural. The footballer played several matches for the Russian national team in 2006 and 2007. After completing his professional career in 2015, Savin hosted programs on Match TV and Channel One, and in 2018 he began publishing videos on the KraSava YouTube channel. In May 2022, the athlete posted interviews with Ukrainian football players on his channel.
In 2020, Savin created the Krasava football club, which, after the start of the war, moved with him from Odintsovo near Moscow to Cyprus.
“The first thing I did when I realized the scale of what was happening (the war in Ukraine — MZ), I wrote to my wife. He said: “Get ready.” As soon as I return, we are leaving Russia.» <…> I realized that we would not be able to live in Russia. The main reason is that I don’t want my children to grow up in a country that starts truly cannibalistic wars with its neighboring country. An emotional and intuitive decision was made on February 24 [2022],” this is how Sobchak Savin explained emigration from the country in an interview.