The ‘Alushta court’ sentenced a local resident to two and a half years of the maximum security regime penal colony in the case of “fake about the Russian army”.
According to the FSB, ‘a 31-year-old citizen threw leaflets made in his own apartment with deliberately false information in mailboxes of apartment buildings, pasted them on the town streets and at public transport stops. In addition, when he found out that his acquaintance, a security agency man, was currently serving in the special operation territory, he plastered his house with leaflets with shameful information.”
The man was detained by FSB men. A criminal case was initiated under Article 207.3 (public dissemination of patently false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the purpose of protecting the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintaining international peace and security) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code.
On October 21, the website of the ‘Alushta Town Court’ announced the conviction of Oleksandr Tarapon.
According to CC Article 207.3-1, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in custody to be served in the maximum security regime penal colony.
As reported in the Russian “Network Freedoms” Telegram channel, lawyer Rifat Yakhin associates such a severe punishment with Tarapon’s outstanding conviction and is preparing to appeal the sentence.
According to GRATY media outlet, Mr.Tarapon knew that his wife’s relative – Yuriy Orlenko, a Russian Guard serviceman, married to her sister – was participating in the war with Ukraine. To stop him and prevent family members from participating in the war, Mr.Tarapon decided to make and post leaflets.
He found Orlenko’s Instagram account and downloaded his picture in a T-shirt, then he processed it with a graphic editor and added the inscription “Here lives Orlenko Yu., a war criminal – the murderer of children” (Zdes’ zhyVet Voyennyi Prestupnik – Ubiytsa Detey Orlenko Yu. – Z and V are symbols used for the Russian military equipment). On March 29, Mr.Tarapon took a trolleybus from Alushta to the village of Izobil’ne, where the Rosguard serviceman lived, and pasted leaflets on the mailbox attached to the house gate as well as on road signs and electric poles in front of nearby houses.
Mr.Tarapon was detained the next day. The police came at the call of relatives of the Russian Guardsman and seized the leaflets as physical evidence. Orlenko’s wife wrote a statement about the crime, stating that Mr.Tarapon’s actions caused her “moral damage and mental suffering.”
His apartment was searched, a computer system unit, a printer and a mobile phone were confiscated. During the search of Mr.Tarapon’s apartment, other anti-war leaflets were also found.
To remind: on March 4, 2022, Putin signed a law establishing a criminal liability for “fakes” regarding the actions of the Russian military. The law supplements the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with Article 207.3, which introduces punishment for spreading “patently false information about the activities of the armed forces of the Russian Federation” and for “discrediting the use of Russian troops.” The Article sanction ranges from a fine (in the amount of up to one and a half million rubles) to custody for up to 15 years. This law was passed very quickly. On March 2, it became known that the amendments introducing the term “fakes about the Russian army” had been submitted to the parliament. The State Duma and the Federation Council approved the amendments on March 4.
