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Prosecutors have requested a sentence of nine and a half years in a general-regime penal colony for Solim Kamin, a resident of Moscow, over anti-war posts. The prosecutor is also seeking to prohibit the defendant from administering websites for five years, an OVD-Info courtroom observer reported.

The 36-year-old Moscow resident is charged under articles relating to spreading so-called “fake news” about the Russian army (section “d” part 2 article 207.3 of the Criminal Code) and calling for activities against state security (sections “v,” “d” part 2 article 280.4 of the Criminal Code).

The authorities identified “fake news” in a post about a strike on a residential block in Uman, which appeared on Kamin’s VKontakte page on 28 April 2023. The post reproduced a publication from Ukrainska Pravda.

Calls for anti-state activity were found in a post containing details of the Ukrainian “I Want to Live” project, which helped Russian soldiers surrender. Investigators claim this amounted to Kamin “calling on service personnel to commit an offence under article 275 of the Criminal Code.”

OVD-Info reported that the authorities had initially been drawn to Kamin after he had an online dispute with another user under a different post. The other user argued that Russians were fighting fascism in Ukraine. Kamin insisted that Russian authorities and propaganda media were lying and compared Russia’s actions with those of Nazi Germany.

“I felt a need not to be silent because I did not want to be an accomplice to crimes. I was angered by the aggression of pro-Russian groups. I wanted to get the truth across to at least part of the population,” Kamin wrote after his arrest.

13:06 The Basmanny District Court has sentenced Kamin to eight years in a general-regime penal colony, an OVD-Info courtroom observer reported. He is also prohibited from administering websites for four and a half years.

The headline of this news story was updated after the verdict was announced.

  • Kamin was detained on 7 October 2024. Officers arrived at his home at 4am. Kamin said he was “forced to the floor, insulted and threatened,” and then tortured.
  • “A man came in with a stun gun and demanded that I confess to having supervisors in Ukraine. Another kicked me,” he wrote in a letter from the pretrial detention centre. He was left with marks on his body from the stun gun.