Press Release, 10.09.2021

Photo from Sergei Mitrokhin’s personal Facebook page

Nina Ostanina, a candidate for State Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Central electoral district No. 208, appealed to the District Electoral Commission with a complaint against Sergei Mitrokhin, her rival in a single-mandate constituency from Yabloko.

In her opinion, Mitrokhin’s video “ILLEGAL CONSTRUCTION? WE ARE COMING FOR HELP!” was published unlawfully on the YouTube channel of Sergei Mitrokhin’s assistant. Ostanina considers the video to be electoral campaigning and asks to check whether it was paid for from Mitrokhin’s electoral account.

In addition, Ostanina accuses Mitrokhin of copyright infringement, claiming that “the video reproduces the announcement of the second season of the Reutov-TV programme produced by the 2×2 TV channel”.

Sergei Mitrokhin called the claims of his competitor in the elections absurd. “There are no calls to vote for me in the video, it doesn’t even mention my name. It is exclusively about my work as a Moscow City Duma deputy. I am not obliged to pay for the information about my parliamentary work from my electoral account,” Mitrokhin answered to a question from journalists.

As far as “infringement of copyright” is concerned, this accusation is also absurd. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, copyright infringement implies declaring oneself to be the author of another person’s work, releasing another person’s work (in full or in part) under one’s own name, or publishing under one’s own name a work created in collaboration with other persons, without indicating their name.

“It is obvious that the video posted on Maria Chuprina’s Youtube channel is not a video from the 2×2 channel (which would have been someone else’s work) and, accordingly, does not contain any ads of authorship for the video of the 2×2 channel, or its release under the channel’s name,” Mitrokhin says.

According to Mitrokhin, the complaint was the “revenge” by the Communist Party for the recently published material about the voting of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation together with [the ruling] United Russia and other factions of the State Duma for a number of repressive laws.

Sergei Mitrokhin does not rule out that the actions of Nina Ostanina “may be dictated by agreements with the Presidential Administration, which is promoting candidate Oleg Leonov in constituency No 208”.

“According to my information, I am now ahead of both Leonov and Ostanina. This could have prompted the Presidential Administration and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to make an agreement to remove me from the elections,” Mitrokhin notes.

In addition to the attempts to remove Mitrokhin from the elections, the communists launched a smear campaign against him. “Fake leaflets are circulating in the constituency that United Russia allegedly supports me, as well as monstrous pictures with images of me in the most humiliating way,” Mitrokhin says. According to him, this is absolutely hopeless, because intelligent people live in his constituency in the Central Administrative District, and all these smear campaigns can cause nothing but disgust.