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The Dorogomilovsky Court in Moscow has placed MMA fighter Zaur Ismailov in a pre-trial detention centre until 5 February over a video of him training near the monument to Emergencies Ministry veterans by the Slavyansky Bulvar metro station, the court’s press office reported.

The criminal case for desecration of a monument (paragraph “b” part 2 article 243.4 of the Russian Criminal Code) was initiated because of a video that the athlete posted to his stories on 5 December. Ismailov threw a resistance band over the sculpture of a boy and did several bicep exercises, before patting the boy on the cap and delivering a few light blows with his hands and foot to the statue.

The video was noticed by pro-war bloggers, and within a few hours the Moscow office of the Investigative Committee reported a case had been initiated. The blogger himself explained that he had been training at the monument for six years and had no intention of desecrating it.

“I left my house at 8am to train, looking tidy. There’s the monument, I gave a military salute, tied a clean rubber band by the hand, didn’t want to tie it to a tree so as not to break anything, did my exercises and ran on. I’ve lived in this area for several years. Here, on the benches by this monument, people drink, smoke, spit and litter almost every day, but I’m the criminal… I didn’t know—I acted foolishly—my doctor told me to exercise, to buy a resistance band,” Ismailov said in court.

Ismailov has no prior convictions and is unmarried; he has a young child and has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which is why his defence argued for house arrest as a restraining measure. His lawyer also noted that the accused had donated 50,000 rubles (about US$550) to a charity supporting mobilised soldiers, and that his brother is a participant in counterterrorist operations and has been awarded honours.