The 2nd Western District Military Court sentenced Alexander Byvshev, a poet from the Oryol region, to seven years in a general regime colony. He himself wrote about this in a letter to activist Anastasia Shevchenko.
51-year-old Byvshev was tried under the article on justifying terrorism because of his poem about the war posted on Facebook (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). There were the lines: “Rockets are hitting Ukraine. //The Kremlin has rejected conscience and morality //Officer’s honor, where are you? Where is your Russian? data-type=»hint» data-slate-custom=»{"body":"<p>Klaus Schenck von Stauffenberg was a Wehrmacht officer who participated in the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944.</p>","isCreated":false}»>Stauffenberg?»
Because of another Facebook post with footage of destruction in the village of Velyka Dymerka near Kiev, where his aunt lived, Byvshev was accused of spreading “fake news” about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine (clause “e” of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code).
This is not the first criminal prosecution of a poet and former German language teacher from the village of Kromy, Oryol region, because of his political poems. In 2015, the poet was sentenced to compulsory labor for publishing two “anti-Russian poems.” One of them, “Ukrainian Patriots,” which Byvshev sent on March 1, 2014 to Ukrainian and Russian media, was recognized as extremist.
Three years later, the Oryol poet was again assigned to compulsory work because of the poem “For the Independence of Ukraine.” In both cases, the poet was found guilty of inciting hatred or enmity (Article 282 of the Criminal Code). Novaya Gazeta noted in a report about Byvshev that “[several] generations of security officials grew up in their careers based on his work.”
The court, in addition to his work, banned Byvshev from working at school for two years, after which he did not was able to get a job there again.