A woman from Kuzbass was fined for sharing a video critical of Putin on the Max messaging app

The Yurga City Court in the Kemerovo Region of the Russian Federation fined local resident Olesya Basalayeva 30,000 rubles under an administrative code provision regarding petty hooliganism. The reason for the punishment was her posting, in the “Kuzbass Incident” public group on the state-run messaging app Max, of a video belonging to someone else in which an unidentified man criticized Vladimir Putin using profanity. 

Russian law enforcement agencies and the court classified the woman’s actions as the dissemination of information demonstrating blatant disrespect for the President of the Russian Federation. 

The defendant herself did not admit guilt and explained at the hearing that she had uploaded the video to punish her own neighbors, who constantly humiliated her, and had no intention of deliberately spreading insults against the head of state. However, the court rejected these arguments and imposed on Basalayeva the minimum fine provided for by Russian law for “disrespect toward the authorities” demonstrated in the public sphere.

The Moscow Times reported this, citing case materials and a publication by Sota.

A Russian court upheld the sentence against a 70-year-old doctor for so-called “fake news” about the army.

Khodorkovsky was sentenced in absentia in Russia to 10 years in a penal colony for anti-war posts.