The Orenburg Regional Court changed the sentence of FSB border troops major in reserve Andrei Prikazchikov in a criminal case about military “fakes” and “discrediting” the Russian army. This was reported by the human rights project “Network Freedoms”.
In February 2024, the Industrial District Court of Orenburg sentenced a 59-year-old military veteran to a fine of 250 thousand rubles (clause “e” of part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code and part 1 of article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution then demanded that Prikazchikov be sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Today, the appellate court sentenced the reserve major to three years of forced labor in the case of spreading military “fakes” based on “political hatred” and banned him from using the Internet for the same period. Under the criminal article of “discrediting” the army, the man was fined 100 thousand rubles.
Prikazchikov served in the border troops on the borders with Tajikistan and Afghanistan. He retired from military service in 1997. In Orenburg, Prikazchikov runs his own “People's Museum of Defenders of the Fatherland named after General Mikhail Grigorievich Chernyaev” and the “Derzhava” party. The military man himself said in an interview with 7×7 that he never supported the policies of Vladimir Putin.
The reason for prosecution under the article about military “fakes” was Prikazchikov’s post in Odnoklassniki, which mentioned Russian missile attacks on Krivoy Rog, writes Network Freedoms. Prikazchikov was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the army because of another publication with the words “aggressor” and “war”, as well as a question to Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu: “What did you think before: a rubber butt?”
In In June 2022, the Industrial District Court fined Prikazchikov 30 thousand rubles under the administrative article about “discrediting” the army (Part 2 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). A protocol was drawn up against him because of a video published on VKontakte, in which a major in the reserve called the war in Ukraine a crime and a seizure of territory. The officer’s page on VKontakte was blocked in Russia on May 20 of the same year at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office.