Press Release, 12.07.2022

Photo: Viktor Shalyakin / Photo from social media

On 11 July, the Novgorod District Court fined Viktor Shalyakin, Chairman of the local branch of the Yabloko party in Novgorod, 30,000 roubles for “spreading false information” about the “special operation” on the VKontakte social network (Article 13.15 Part 9 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

The court called fake the information diverging from the statements of the official representative of the Ministry of Defence Igor Konashenkov who stated that 1) “the armed forces of the Russian Federation do not inflict any missile or artillery strikes on the cities of Ukraine”; 2) “high-precision weapons of the Armed Forces of the RF disable only military infrastructure”; 3) “there are no threats to the civilian population”.

The police detained Viktor Shalyakin who had been beaten by unidentified persons right in the street that day while putting up posters “For Peace!” so that to draw up a protocol against him, and kept him for more than three hours in the police station, despite the fact that Shalyakin needed medical care due to a head injury and could not see anything due to severe swelling. The police refused to postpone the drawing up of the protocol due to the lack of a defence lawyer either. All procedural violations were neglected by the court.

Viktor Shalyakin has to pay a fine of 30,000 roubles must be paid before 11 September, 2022.

Two more charges against Shalyakin – on “discrediting the army” (a fine of 45,000 roubles) and “on insulting the authorities” (a fine of 50,000 roubles) – are being appealed against.

Read more about the persecution of Yabloko members after the start of the “special operation”.