Press Release, 25.04.2024

Photo: Nikolai Yegorov with his family / Photo from the personal archive

The judge of the Veliky Ustyug District Court of the Vologda Region made a decision on 25 April. Nikolai Yegorov, former deputy of the Vologda Legislative Assembly, father of six children and Chairman of the regional branch of the Yabloko party, will have to pay the state 200,000 roubles.

It should be noted that Nikolai Yegorov was found guilty of “discrediting the army” (Article 280.3 Part 1 of the Criminal Code) for posts on social networks. On 3 May, 2023, a group of police officers (12 people) detained Yegorov near his country house and then took him to his apartment for a search. Investigative actions also took place in the apartment of Yegorov’s daughter. On 5 May, 2023, a search took place in the office at Yegorov’s place of work. Equipment and data storage devices were confiscated from Yegorov. His family and he himself was under a ban on certain actions for almost a year while the investigation was going on.

Yegorov and his family were subjected to moral pressure and threatened with physical violence.

The leader of the Vologda Yabloko, Nikolai Yegorov, already has three fines under the administrative article for “discrediting the army” for a total of 110,000 roubles. The politician and his daughter administered the city public page on VKontakte social media, however, Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision in Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Media) and the administration of the social network regularly deleted posts from this page.

In addition to the fine, Nikolai Yegorov was banned from administering websites, Telegram channels and publishing appeals on the Internet for two years. His computer was confiscated by the state.

Nikolai Yegorov became the fourth Yabloko member convicted under a criminal article for “discrediting the army”. Earlier, the Chairman of the Yakutsk branch of the party, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, and the leader of the Kamchatka branch, Vladimir Yefimov, received fines in the amount of 200,000 roubles under the same article. Party member from Khakassia, journalist Mikhail Afanasyev received a real sentence of 5.5 years in prison under the article on disseminating “fakes about the army”. The Chairman of the Frunzensky local branch of the St. Petersburg Yabloko, Vasily Neustroyev, is being charged with six criminal articles at once.

Read more about persecution of Yabloko members since the start of the special military operation: https://www.yabloko.ru/war-against-yabloko