At least 149 cases for "fakes" about the army opened in the RF – media
As of August 2022, 149 cases under the Criminal Code article on "fakes" about the army have been opened in Russia.
This is evidenced by the data published by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the "Web Freedoms" project and the Institute of Law Implementation Problems at the European University report.
124 people became involved in the cases (some of them are mentioned in up to seven cases), human rights defenders know about 109 of them for sure.
The most cases for so-called "fakes" were opened in Moscow and St. Petersburg: 30 cases have been initiated in Moscow, 9 in St. Petersburg.
Next are the Western Siberia regions: 9 cases opened in Altai Krai, 8 in Omsk Oblast, and 7 in Novosibirsk Oblast.
Another 13 cases were initiated under the article on "repeated discrediting" of the army of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
On March 4, the Russian State Duma adopted a law regarding criminal liability for "fakes about the actions of the Russian army." In the evening of the same day, President Vladimir Putin, signed the document. The decision includes a fine between 700 thousand and 1.5 million rubles, or up to three years in prison for untrue reports. A fine of 3 to 5 million rubles or 5 to 10 years in prison for fakes created by officials with the purpose of "creating falsified evidence or motivated by enmity."
The punishment for deliberately untrue fakes that led to serious consequences is from 10 to 15 years in prison.
As IMI reported, on October 18, the Magistrate's Court of the Tagansky district of Moscow imposed an administrative fine of four million rubles on the video streaming service Twitch for hostng information about Russia's war against Ukraine. On October 4, 2022, the Magistrate's Court of the Tagansky district of Moscow imposed a 4 million rubles administrative fine on the American video streaming service Twitch for not taking down content with information about Russia's war in Ukraine. From the content made public in court, it appeared that the service was fined for streaming a two-hour interview with Oleksiy Arestovych, the adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine.
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