Rostov activist fined for discrediting militaries

A court in Rostov-on-Don has imposed a fine of 30,000 roubles on Natalia Bondareva, an activist, finding her guilty of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces after her pacifist picket.

Natalia, a resident of Rostov-on-Don, was fined for her solo picket held in Communist Avenue. She went out to her picket on April 12 with a poster against the special operation in Ukraine; and the Sovietsky Court has fined her by 30,000 roubles, the "Kavkaz.Realii"* wrote on June 23. At the trial, Bondareva pleaded guilty and repented, the report says.

This is Bondareva's second fine under the article on discrediting the army. Earlier, the activist and her mother were fined because of their anti-war pickets held at the city administration, the human rights project "OVD-Info"** has reported.

The "Caucasian Knot" has also reported that on June 21, law enforcers detained Sergey Samarsky, a resident of Rostov-on-Don, when he was holding a solo picket near the building of the regional government. Two protocols were drawn up against him – under the articles on discrediting the army and on disobeying the police; he spent a night at the police station. On June 22, the court fined him by 50,000 roubles under the defamation article and sentenced him to 13 days of administrative arrest.

*This is a fragment of a message created and distributed by a foreign mass medium acting as a foreign agent.

**The project was put by the Russian Ministry of Justice into the list of unregistered public associations acting as a foreign agent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 24, 2022 at 04:24 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.