The security forces came to the Council of Deputies of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow, said opposition politician, council member Ilya Yashin. According to him, a criminal case was opened against two deputies under the article about “fakes” about the army. In early March, the council of deputies adopted a statement “On disagreement with the military operation against Ukraine.”

For anti-war statements, municipal deputies face up to 10 years. Information about the searches was confirmed to Interfax by the lawyer of the deputies Sergei Telnov. Law enforcement agencies have not yet commented on this.

In the Krasnoselsk Council of Deputies on the morning of April 26, the security forces broke down the doors and seized all the equipment, Yashin said. They also searched the home of council deputy Aleksey Gorinov. He was taken for interrogation to the Investigative Committee, where it turned out that a case had been opened under the article on “fakes”. According to the results of the interrogation, Gorinov was officially detained, the investigation will petition for his detention, Yashin said.

The second defendant in the case is the head of the Krasnoselsky municipal district, Elena Kotenochkina. She is not threatened with interrogations and searches: she has gone abroad.

Kotenochkina left because she expected criminal prosecution. Deputies of the Krasnoselsky Soviet – one of the few in Moscow where the opposition was able to win the majority of seats in the elections in 2017 – actively spoke out against the war. They even wrote a collective appeal to President Vladimir Putin demanding that the war be stopped. They received a response from the presidential administration that the appeal had been forwarded to the Investigative Committee.

“Recently, I began to doubt that they would start a case,” Elena Kotenochkina admitted to the BBC. “We were not even held administratively liable for the deputies’ appeal to Putin. It was March 1: our statement that we were joining the anti-war movement that we are asking Putin to withdraw the troops. And nothing happened.”

From the decision published by Yashin to initiate a criminal case, it follows that Kotenochkina and Gorinov acted by prior agreement: they criminally called the “special operation” a war, had an “unfriendly and dismissive attitude towards the Russian authorities.”

As the lawyers found out, the case was opened under article 207.3 of the Criminal Code: the dissemination of “fakes” about the armed forces. This article provides for punishment of up to 10 years in prison . Yashin himself, who had been the head of the council for several years, was also called from the criminal investigation department (Kotenochkina replaced him in 2021). Yashin wrote in his telegram channel that he “is not going to run away from anyone” and will come for interrogation himself, accompanied by a lawyer.

Video recordings of all council meetings appear on its website. These very records – as well as the posts of deputies on Facebook – became the reason for denunciations. Several people wrote statements against the deputies at once.

The State Duma deputy from United Russia Alexander Khinshtein was the first to pay attention to Kotenochnikova’s statements. He accused the MP of an anti-Russian position, noticing a Facebook post where Kotenochkina wrote that the “special military operation” is “the genocide of the Ukrainian people who have chosen democratic European values as the basis of their statehood” and “the revenge of a tyrant.” In the post, she called on all Russian citizens to join the anti-war movement.

Then Oleg Leonov, an activist of the Liza Alert search team, who entered the State Duma in 2021 as an independent candidate, wrote a statement .

There was also a third statement – from the municipal deputy Shilnikov. A copy of his statement is available from the BBC. This is a young municipal deputy of the Otradnoye district and the chairman of the “Union of paratroopers” of the same district. He was offended by what he said at a meeting of the council of deputies on March 15.

Then the deputies of the Krasnoselsky Soviet discussed that holding a children’s drawing competition during the invasion of Ukraine was “a feast during the plague.” Aleksey Gorinov insisted that the main issue for civil society is to stop the war, withdraw troops from Ukraine, and we need to think about this, and not about competitions and holidays.

“The officials arranged the Victory Days for themselves, and what did it lead to? To the formation of a fascist state – Russia,” Kotyonochkina adds on the record .

Shilnikov saw in this disrespect for the days of military glory – and this is also a criminal article, 354.1 of the Criminal Code. According to the same article, the Moment of Truth publication, created by TV presenter Andrei Karaulov, complained about Kotenochkina.

“What I announced at the council of deputies was done deliberately, I just didn’t think that there would be such a resonance,” Kotyonochkina told the BBC. While she remains the head of the municipal assembly.

This is the first criminal case against the Mundeps for speaking out about the war in Ukraine. But since the beginning of the invasion, they managed to punish other deputies for their words. For example, the council of deputies of the Yakimanka district unanimously adopted a statement on the situation around Ukraine – also anti-war. After that, all the signatories received warnings from the prosecutor’s office about the inadmissibility of violating the law.

Fines of 150 thousand rubles were received by the heads of two districts of Moscow – Elena Rusakova from the Gagarinsky district and Gordey Nefedov from Lomonosovsky. They were convicted under an administrative article for discrediting the army.

In 2017, in the municipal elections in Moscow, the opposition managed to win in several districts. Including in Krasnoselsky: Ilya Yashin became the head of the council. In the summer of 2021, he resigned from his post due to pressure from the prosecutor’s office, and was replaced by Elena Kotenochkina.

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