The Russian judiciary has rejected a complaint by an Orthodox cleric and opponent of the Russian war in Ukraine against his six-week preventive detention. Petersburg City Court refused to release suspended priest Ioann Kurmoyarov, his lawyer Leonid Krikun said on Facebook. On June 9, a court ordered two months in prison because Kurmojarov knowingly spread false information about the special military operation, as the war of aggression in Russia should be called.
In March, Kurmoyarov condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in his own video on the YouTube platform. Those who started the war would not go to heaven, but to hell, he said. Police arrested him on June 7 and confiscated his computer, his cassock, two icons and a wooden cross, among other things. Anyone circulating false information about the Russian military in Ukraine has been threatened with up to 15 years in prison since March. Parliament passed this in an emergency procedure following the Russian attack on Ukraine in late February.