The State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption has developed a bill on responsibility for “discrediting” volunteers participating in the Ukraine War, reported to RBC by MP Vasily Piskarev.
“Responsibility is being introduced for discrediting participants of hostilities, including volunteer formations that assist the Russian Armed Forces in fulfilling their tasks,” Piskarev said.
The MPs are also planning to introduce responsibility for spreading “fake news” about volunteers.
On 24 January, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the PMC Wagner, asked State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin to add a new article “On discrediting combatants, volunteers, including former convicts” to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In it, he proposed to ban public actions “aimed at discrediting them, publications of a negative nature against them, as well as dissemination of information about their past offences.”
In response, Volodin instructed MPs to study the possibility of amending the criminal code to establish liability for discrediting combatants.
