The Kremlin protects its own, including the group of wagner mercenaries. The Duma has advanced this Thursday in a legal reform that would ensure that the participants in the Russian offensive in Ukraine will not be discredited at home. The project wants to change the penal and administrative responsibility to those who publicly discredit to all the participants in what the Russian government calls a “special military operation”, including volunteer formations and also mercenaries. The penalty can go up to 15 years in jail in the worst cases.
In his presentation of the initiative, the president of the Duma, Viacheslav Volodinexplained that they deal with various amendments to the Penal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses on “the responsibility for discrediting the participants in the special military operation“. Those sanctioned must face hard sorrowssuch as “fines of up to five million rubles (60,000 euros at current exchange rates) or correctional or compulsory labor of up to five years, or imprisonment of up to 15 years.”
The legislator justified the need for this change to protect those who, in his opinion, “are risking their lives, watch over the security of the country and our citizens.” This Thursday the second reading of the bill was carried out, and the last one will take place on March 14. The so-called ‘Putin cook’, Yevgeny Prigozhinleader of this mercenary group, asked Volodin in January to urgently discuss the possibility of criminally punishing critics against all those who are on the Ukrainian front today.
Sentenced for “discrediting” the Russian army
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Within the framework of this law, they have already been judged thousands of citizens, condemned in many cases to fines of variable amounts. In the first eight months of the conflict, a total of 2,500 Russian citizens were penalized, who in total paid the equivalent of one and a half million euros in fines. However, more prominent voices have fallen greater penalties for having openly criticized the “special military operation”, as is the case of the opponent Ilya Yashin or the former mayor of Yekaterinburg Yevgeny Roizman.
The first said openly in a ‘streaming’ that the Bucha massacre It was carried out by Russian troops, something that cost him a sentence of nine years in prison. Roizman, for his part, also criticized the actions of the Russian army and is currently under house arrest and has The use of social networks is prohibited.