The Investigative Committee in the Russian city of Penza has initiated a criminal case on the “discreditation” of the Russian army against pensioner Nikolay Gutsenovich for his reactions to several posts shared on Russian social network Odnoklassniki, Russian human rights project OVD-Info reports.
According to the prosecution, Gutsenovich “liked” several anti-war posts.
“[These posts] feature remarks containing statements on Russian servicemen shooting Ukrainian civilians, attacking residential buildings with missiles, in the city of Kyiv among others, which led to death of civilians,” the decision on the initiation of a criminal case reads.
In particular, the man “reacted to posts on the aforementioned social network, after which the posts were added to his page and were available to be seen by an undefined number of people”. Allegedly, the posts characterise the Russian army’s actions as “criminal, aggressive”.
“This social network operates in such a way that I could have put a thumbs-up reaction or a negative one to any post, and it still would show up on my page. Even though I didn’t post them. They thought that by reacting [to a post] I shared the information allegedly discrediting the Russian army,” Gutsenovich told Telegram channel ASTRA.
In March 2022, Gutsenovich held a single picket — he stood with a poster showing a missile being broken by a pair of hands.
He was fined 30,000 rubles (€390) under an administrative article on “discrediting” the Russian army.