Russian politician Yevgeny Roizman fined €3,000 for ‘discrediting’ Russian army

Russian opposition politician and former Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman has been fined 260,000 rubles (€3,000) for “discrediting” the Russian army, TASS reports.

The state prosecution asked the court to issue a 260,000-ruble fine.

Roizman was detained in August 2022 and banned from travelling to public spaces, using any means of communication, and receiving correspondence. Roizman pleaded not guilty.

Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva and Naina Yeltsina, wife of Russia’s late first President Boris Yeltsin, sent a letter to the court to defend the politician. Founder of Vera, a charity for hospices and their patients, Nyuta Federmesser spoke in court as a defence witness. The court refused to take these statements into account.

In 2022, the politician was fined three times for “discrediting” the Russian army. In May 2022, he was also fined for disrespecting the Russian authorities. In total, Roizman was fined 235,000 rubles (€2,725). 

The politician was also arrested for 14 days for “promoting” extremist symbols on VK, a Russian social media platform, in March 2023. Roizman himself said that he never had a VK page.