Press release, 16.06.2015

Public activists challenged Putin’s decree classifying war losses sustained during peacetime special operations a state secret in the Supreme Court. These nine applicants are YABLOKO’s MP in the Pskov Legislative Assembly Lev Shlosberg, human rights defender Ivan Pavlov, journalist Grigory Pasko, Timur Olyevsky and others. The applicants claim that the decree violates the Constitutional right to free seeking and distribution of information.

“There can not be any secret war losses during peacetime, the society must know the price it pays for the Armed Forces operations since they are financed from the state budget, last year it turned out that the money of the citizens of Russia was directly spent on killing people,” Lev Shlosberg said.

According to the law, the Supreme Court must register the application within three days and in the next five days it must take the decision on either conducting court hearings or dismiss the claim.

On May 28, Vladimir Putin signed a decree classifying the war losses sustained by the Ministry for Defense during peacetime and special operations as a state secret.

On May 29, YABLOKO Bureau issued a statement condemning the presidential decree and demanded to abolish the unconstitutional decree No 273 of May 28, 2015.

“First of all, the Decree violates the rights of the citizens of Russia, i.e. disrupts Russia’s constitutional foundations, including the rights of the citizens to life, freedom of speech and legal defense of one’s interests. This Decree confirms the right of the Russian state to illegally, secretly and with impunity send its citizens to die,” runs the Bureau statement.