A former police officer who spoke on the phone about Russia’s invasion. A priest who preached to his congregation about the suffering of Ukrainians. A student holding up a banner with no words – just asterisks.
Hundreds of Russians have been charged for speaking out against the war in Ukraine since a repressive law was passed last month banning the dissemination of “false information” about the invasion and vilifying the military.
Human rights groups say the crackdown has led to criminal prosecutions and possible jail terms for at least 23 people on “false information” charges, with over 500 others facing charges of insulting the military, which has either resulted in or is expected to result in hefty fines.
“This is a large volume, an unprecedented large volume” of cases, said Damir Gainutdinov, head of legal aid group Net Freedoms, which focuses on free speech cases, in an interview with The Associated Press.
The Kremlin has sought to control the narrative of the war from the moment its troops invaded Ukraine. It labeled the attack a “military special operation” and increased pressure on independent Russian media, which labeled it a “war” or “invasion,” and blocked access to many news sites reporting at odds with the official line.
Widespread arrests stifled anti-war protests, turning them from a daily occurrence in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg to rare occurrences that drew little attention.
Despite this, there are almost daily reports of police arrests of individual pickets in various Russian cities.
Even seemingly harmless acts have led to arrests.
A man has been arrested in Moscow after standing next to a World War II memorial that reads “Kyiv” to the city’s heroic stand against Nazi Germany and holding a copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Another was reportedly arrested for holding up a packet of sliced ham from meat producer Miratorg, with the latter half of the name crossed out to read “Mir” – “peace” in Russian.
A law against the dissemination of “fake news” about the war or disparaging the military was passed by Parliament in a day and went into effect immediately, punishing anyone who criticizes the conflict with fines and jail time.
The first publicly known “forgery” criminal cases were against public figures such as Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a Russian-language cookbook author and popular blogger living abroad, and Alexander Nevzorov, a TV journalist, film director and former lawmaker.
Both have been accused of posting “false information” about Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine on their widely shared social media pages – which Moscow vehemently denies and insists Russian forces are only attacking military targets.
But then the scope of the operation expanded and the police seemed to grab everyone.
Former police officer Sergei Klokov was arrested and remanded in custody after talking to his friends on the phone about the war. His wife told news site Meduza that Klokov, who was born in Irpin near Kyiv and whose father was still living in Ukraine when Russian troops invaded, had a casual conversation at home denouncing the invasion.
Klokov has been charged with spreading false information about the Russian armed forces and faces up to 10 years in prison.
The St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skolichenko faces up to 10 years in prison on the same charge: she replaced price tags in a grocery store with anti-war flyers. On Wednesday, a court sentenced Skolichenko to 1 1/2 months in custody.
Rev. Ioann Burdin, a Russian Orthodox priest in a village about 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) northeast of Moscow, was fined 35,000 rubles (about US$432) for “discrediting the Russian armed forces” after he posted an anti-war statement on his church’s website He spoke to a dozen parishioners during a church service about the pain he felt as people died in Ukrain’e.
Burdin told AP his speech drew mixed reactions. “A woman made a scene about the fact that I was talking about this when she came in to pray,” he said, adding that he believes one of those listening to the sermon reported him to the police.
Marat Grachev, director of a store that repairs Apple products in Moscow, also got into trouble when he displayed a link to an online petition titled “No to War” on a screen at the store. Many customers expressed their support when they saw it, but an elderly man demanded it be taken down and threatened to report Grachev to authorities.
The police soon showed up and Grachev was accused of discrediting the military. A court ordered him to pay a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,236).
Another court ruled against Moscow student Dmitry Reznikov for showing a blank sheet of paper with eight asterisks, which in Russian could have been interpreted as “No to war” – a popular chant by protesters. The court found him guilty of discrediting the armed forces and fined him 50,000 rubles ($618) for holding the sign in central Moscow at a demonstration in mid-March that lasted only seconds before police arrested him.
“It’s the theater of the absurd,” his lawyer Oleg Filatchev told AP.
A court in St. Petersburg last week fined Artur Dmitriev for displaying a sign quoting President Vladimir Putin – though a few words are omitted for brevity – from last year’s Victory Day Parade marking Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II.
“The war brought with it so many unbearable challenges, sadness and tears that it is impossible to forget them. There is no forgiveness and no justification for those who once again harbor aggressive plans,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin website.
Dmitriev was fined 30,000 rubles for discrediting the Russian military. That prompted him to post on Facebook on Friday: “Vladimir Putin’s sentence, and ergo himself … discredits the aims of the Russian armed forces. From this moment on, Roskomnadzor (Internet and media regulator) must block all speeches by Putin and true patriots – remove his portraits in their offices.”
Gainutdinov of Net Freedoms said anything related to the military or Ukraine could target a person. Even wearing a hat with the blue and gold of the Ukrainian flag or a green ribbon, which are considered a symbol of peace, has discredited the military, the lawyer added.
Reznikov, who denounced his conviction for the asterisked poster, said he found the approach frightening. After his first misdemeanor conviction, a second strike would result in criminal prosecution and a possible prison sentence of up to three years.
Both Burdin and Grachev, who are also appealing, received donations that exceeded their fines.
“I realized how important it is, how valuable it is to have support,” Grachev said.
Burdin said the publicity about his case had spread his message well beyond the dozen people who originally heard his sermon – the opposite of what authorities presumably intended by fining him.
“It is impossible to call it anything other than the providence of God,” added the priest. “The words I said reached a much larger number of people.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine