“In the name of the Russian Federation: this never happened”
How Russia prosecutes so-called ‘fake news’ about the war in Ukraine.
By Anastasia Golubeva, 3 August 2022
Since the start of the war in Russia there have been 80 criminal charges relating to spreading ‘fake news’ about the Russian Army in Ukraine. Charges have been brought against a total of 74 people. Almost half have either left Russia or are under arrest.
The most prominent cases concern opposition politicians and bloggers. But more than half of those accused are ordinary citizens. BBC Russian has analysed data and case documentation made available by the ‘NetFreedoms’ (Сетевые свободы) project, which provides legal support for many people accused of spreading ‘fake news’ about the war.
In the beginning of March, a 17-year-old student from Novosibirsk, Efim (not his real name), shared a news article in a group chat on Telegram. ‘The chief of staff of the president of Ukraine, Mikhail Podolyak, seems to have said that nuclear facilities in the country have been “captured by Chechen fighters” he wrote.
“I hope he’s lying”, Efim added: “otherwise it’s the worst news of the 21st century”.
One month later, the schoolboy was charged with spreading ‘fake news’ about the Russian army.
The investigation declared that Efim was acting purposefully, with 'criminal intent” to “spread consciously fake information” about Russia’s armed forces. (The BBC has access to the details of the case.)
The investigation ‘confidently established’ that Efim’s shared message was ‘fake news’ because on the same day, Russia’s Ministry of Defence had published a statement announcing that the Russian army had taken control of the Zaporizhzhia power plant, and that ‘Ukrainian nationalists’ were staging provocations against Russia there.
Another proof, according to the investigation, was a statement by the Chechen detachment of Russia’s National Guard that its members had not been involved in action at the Zaoprizhzhia power plant in the first place.
Under questioning, Efim explained that he shared this story only in order to see whether it was true or not.
He now faces up to three years behind bars for falling foul of the law against so-called ‘fake news’.
Spreading ‘unreliable information’ about the actions of Russian soldiers abroad was criminalised at the beginning of March, two weeks after the start of the war. The maximum penalty under the legislation is 15 years.
In Russia, 80 criminal cases have been opened for ‘fake news’. Data collection for known cases has been organised by the “NetFreedoms” project.
To freeze discussion
80 criminal cases in five months is a big number. In the opinion of Stanislav Seleznyev, the “NetFreedoms” project lawyer, this is especially true for criminal legislation about the use of language. On top of that, these are just the cases which are known about.
“The key goal of the law on ‘fake news’ is to preserve only the official line on politically important topics in the public realm. Any unofficial information, not pre-approved by a bureaucrat, must be excluded from the realms of Russian language discourse - or face civil or criminal investigation,” - says Seleznyev.
“For the government, blocking opposition media didn’t do enough to stop the unwelcome spread of information and interpretations,” says the political commentator Abbas Galyamov. “New media outlets sprung up in the place of blocked ones, and opposition audiences grew significantly in social channels like ‘Telegram’. They had to do something: the lack of frontline victories made the government vulnerable to criticism”.
According to information gathered by the BBC and by “NetFreedoms”, most of the criminal charges under this law were made in March and April. And the first charges were made as early as ten days after the law came into effect.
The first accused people under this law included a pensioner from Seversk, who criticised the Russian government on her Telegram feed; the blogger Veronica Belotserkovskaya (now listed as a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice) who condemned the war on Instagram; and a former policeman from Tomsk who published strong anti-war posts on Facebook.
Investigations into ‘fake news’ subsided over the summer. In spring, more than 50 criminal cases were reported, while in the summer months the number was only around 20.
NetFreedoms’ lawyer Seleznyev explains this trend in two ways. The first is simply that the figures line up with when most members of law enforcement agencies take their holidays. The second is that the ‘fake news’ law is now working the way it was intended: to freeze public discussion about the war.
Almost half of the criminal charges about ‘fake news’ have been brought against journalists, bloggers or civil activists.
But Seleznyev suggests this does not necessarily mean people with particular political views are being targeted. Law enforcement officials are probably simply trying to shut down discussion, irrespective of the politics involved.
“The majority of those under investigation are people who think of themselves as ’educators’, as it were. And they have discovered that it’s a road that leads straight to the detention centre - and after that, to the courtroom”, says Seleznyev.
The decisive factor might be how many followers they have, he adds.
“Someone who has a lot of social media followers is more likely to be denounced to the police. Simple as that. Given that a journalist has greater reach than a student, a journalist is more likely to come under investigation”, explains Seleznyev.
Also, according to the political scientist Galyamov, charging ordinary people rather than public figures works against the government.
“Excessive repression erodes the social foundations of the regime. But unfortunately for the government, it can now barely control its own repressive organs: so they’ve cracked on with things full tilt.”
Detention centre or emigration
Since the start of the war, and since criminal charges have been levelled, a significant number of journalists, bloggers and activists has left Russia.
And if a person ends up in court, it is very likely that they will be detained.
Investigators can be pretty confident that the courts will approve arrests under the ‘fake news’ law, given that two out of its three parts constitute ‘serious criminal offences’, says Seleznyev.
“We have lawyers in a number of regions communicating with criminal investigators, and we are hearing the same formulaic response from all of them: “We aren’t making any decisions here. These are orders from on high. it’s only going to be detention”.
“Investigators refer to higher-ups in the capital who require the toughest possible outcome when it comes to such cases”, Seleznyev said.
In total, since the start of the war, 80 criminal charges have been made against 74 people. In the case of certain individuals, multiple criminal charges were made under the same law.
For example, three criminal charges were brought against Isabella Yevloyeva, a journalist from Ingushetia, for her posts on personal and professional Telegram accounts.
Two criminal charges regarding ‘fake news’ were brought against a former regional coordinator for jailed anti-corruption activist Alexander Navalny, Alexander Zykov, for posts on the Russian social media site VKontakte.
Both Yevloyeva and Zykov have now left Russia. A further two cases were opened against the activist Petr Borovinsky from Kopeysk for posts about the shelling of Mariupol.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has even opened two criminal cases about ‘fake news’ with no individuals specifically accused.
On the 4th of April, the Committee’s head Aleksandr Bastrykin, ordered a case to be opened concerning the spread of ‘fake news’ about the events in Bucha. (Russia rejects that Ukrainian civilians were murdered by Russian forces).
Four days later, a similar case was opened concerning the spread of ‘fake news’ about people killed when a rocket hit Kramatorsk train station. (Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the missile strike, in which dozens of civilians were killed).
In these two cases there were no people specifically accused, and no further information about the investigations has come to light.
NetFreedom’s lawyer Seleznyev says that such cases have a different intent: not to investigate and punish, but ‘to keep an eye out, and to research’.
“Opening such criminal cases allows for a series of investigative measures, including judicial approval for phone tapping and the capture of information through email and social media. Most importantly, it allows for court orders to carry out such investigative measures in any region of the country. Let’s say, that the suspect is some guy from South-Sakhalinsk or Arkhangelsk. With such legal precedents, investigations can be judicially approved in any part of Russia.”
Cookie-cutter cases
The investigation always uses the same template to ‘prove’ that someone is spreading false information about the Russian army, according to Seleznyev. The primary proof for the prosecution is constituted by information provided by Russia’s Ministry of Defence.
“An investigator might ask, ‘Here someone has stated that Russian planes have bombed Ukrainian cities. Is this the case?’ The head of the Ministry of Defence would reply, ‘No, nothing like that happened. Bombings have only been carried out against terrorists and Nazi bases’. This is standard practice for most of the criminal cases we know of”, Seleznyev says.
In every case, linguistic ‘expertise’ is used to compare the statements of the accused with the official line of the Russian government.
For example in May, criminal charges were brought against two journalists, Michael Naki and Ruslan Leviyev. The charge related to one of their Youtube streams, in which they discussed fighting near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and in the town of Bucha.
The ‘linguistic experts’ in the case concluded that the clip “did not provide the viewer with the ability to form an objective view of what happened. The videos and accompanying commentary unambiguously claimed that events in question were the consequence of Russia’s actions”.
‘Fake news about the war’ is also proved in other ways. For example, in the case of Natalya Petrimova, an ex-aide of Alexei Navalny in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, there is a mysterious witness under the pseudonym ‘Pandoctor’. Petrimova’s charges relate to the spreading of ‘fake news’ through three posts about Bucha on her Telegram channel.
‘Pandoctor’ told the investigation that they were acquainted with Petrimova - and could reasonably attest that the Telegram posts were created by her. “I know this because I personally saw Petrimova’s Telegram account … Furthermore, the style of the text in the posts matches the style of Petrimova’s previous statements”.
In all, criminal charges pertaining to ‘fake news’ tend to be levelled where information can be ‘fact-checked’. For matters of opinion, a different criminal charge is issued – about the ‘discreditation of the Russian army’.
However, there are exceptions here, too. Boris Romanov in St. Petersburg, a member of the Yabloko political party, was charged under the ‘fake news’ law after he called the Russian army ‘fascists’.
“Obviously, it is impossible to ascertain whether a person is a fascist by one single criterion”, comments Seleznyev.
Another illogical case concerns that against Aleksandr Tarapon from Alushty. He attached flyers to the house of a member of the Russian National Guard who was a participant of the war in Ukraine. It read: “A war criminal lives here: a child murderer”.
The court sentence against Tarapon said that he “publicly spread his flyers as though they were reliable information”; and that they damaged the reputation of Russian soldiers and members of the National Guard involved in achieving the war aims in Ukraine.
Seleznyev believes that this case may be classed as slander against a specific person, but not as ‘fake news’ about the armed forces as a whole, as it concerns only one specific member of the National Guard. “He [Tarapon] might fully support the ‘special military operation’, but maybe he just didn’t like the actions of this one specific person.”
The line of defence
Lawyers of the ‘NetFreedoms’ project have taken on about half of all the ‘fake war news cases in Russia. Stanislav Seleznyev says the defence team focuses on three main points.
First, the defence lawyers try to prove that in some cases the charges do not concern the Russian armed forces as a whole – as in the case of the student Efim and Alekandr Tarapon.
Another relevant example is the case of Mikhail Afanasyev, a journalist charged as a result of an article published in the regional journal New Focus. The article told how riot police in Khakassia refused to go to Ukraine, because members of the National Guard came under fire there before them.
“Afanasyev himself did not say a single word about the armed forced in his article. He talks about the riot police, but does not express anything about the Russian National Guard or the armed forces”, says Seleznyev.
Second, in many cases at the moment of publication it is impossible to know whether a message or post is ‘fake’ or not - and whether or not it will later be rejected by the Ministry of Defence. Efim’s case is once again an example of this.
“In his case, there is no real basis for the alleged crime. A person simply received information that something happened in Ukrainian territory. He thought that this information was significant and decided to pass it on to his friends and acquaintances, in no way being aware that this information was ‘false’”, says Seleznyev.
The Ministry of Defence tends to release statements regarding these events well after the fact and sometimes does not make comment at all, he adds.
The most prominent example of such a case is the criminal investigation of the lawyer Dmitri Talantov, who among other matters was defending Ivan Safronov, a journalist accused of treason.
Talantov was accused of spreading ‘fake news’ about the mass killings of peaceful citizens in Ukraine. Seleznyev points out that Talantov’s posts were published at 13:00 - whilst the Ministry of Defence version of events was only published at 17:50 that day.
The third argument of the defence is that one shouldn’t blindly believe the official line of the Ministry of Defence in the first place. “Since ancient times, and in any court today, it is not enough to compare the findings of only two sides, as the two hostile sides will inevitably present varying information to support their positions”, says Seleznyev.
As well comparing the statements of the two sides, an independent court ought also to examine witness and information from impartial sources, as well as from reporters, and cross-question people who were at the scene of events, Seleznyev adds.
“So it goes without saying that some letter from some general, who has never even been in Ukraine, cannot be considered sufficient evidence by an independent court”.
Slow to judge…
In the five months since the law against “fake news” was passed, five verdicts have been pronounced – all of them convictions, though with different punishments. The harshest sentence was given to a local councillor from Moscow, Aleksei Gorinov, who got seven years in prison.
An Orenburg resident was sentenced to eight months of community service. An individual from Baikal region received a one million rouble fine. And a resident of Yalta received a five-year suspended sentence.
But as Seleznyev says, regional judges are in no rush to try such criminal cases.
“Often, local judges admit to case participants that it’s probably better to wait and see what they have to say in Moscow. By definition, for many judges it’s the first time they have faced such a case,” says Seleznyev.
Every judicial process about spreading ‘fake news’ is in reality “a case that shapes how events unfolding on the territory of Ukraine are supposed to be perceived”, says Stanislav Seleznyev.
Every time a court issues a conviction for spreading ‘fake news’ - about events in Bucha, for example - the court is claiming that no such mass killing took place there.
“Every single judge who pronounces a sentence like this,” says Seleznyev, “is actually taking upon themselves the responsibility, in the name of the Russian Federation, for stating that the events described by the defendant never happened at all.”
Read this story in Russian here.
Translated by Danny Booth.