22:45, 20 April 2026

A Stavropol resident was fined for a pro-Ukrainian slogan.

A court fined Georgievsk resident Ilya Gushchin 50,000 rubles for a pro-Ukrainian slogan he uttered near a church.

Criminal liability for discrediting the armed forces was introduced on March 4, 2022. Since then, residents of Russia, including those in the North Caucasus and Southern Federal Districts, have been subject to prosecution under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. This article provides for a fine of 30,000 to 100,000 rubles, and repeat violations within a year result in criminal prosecution.

The Georgievsk City Court in Stavropol Krai fined local resident Ilya Gushchin under the article on discrediting the army (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). The man's charge was filed on Easter Sunday, and the court heard his case that same day, Mediazona reported today*.

According to the court's ruling, on the evening of April 12, the man was leaving St. George's Cathedral and shouted two words of support for Ukraine in the presence of police officers and parishioners.

"Citizens on the church grounds perceived these words as discrediting the Russian Armed Forces and supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces," the court's website stated. The Armed Forces were not mentioned in Gushchin's chant.

In court, the man repented and pleaded guilty. He claimed he was "joking and didn't mean anything bad." The court fined him 50,000 rubles.

"Caucasian Knot" wrote that Gayritin Sumanakov, a pensioner from Kamyshin, twice received fines for discrediting Russian military personnel for likes on Odnoklassniki. Also in early April, it became known that the court placed in pretrial detention a 30-year-old resident of Stavropol Krai, charged with disseminating false information about the Russian armed forces due to comments on a messenger.

Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code was introduced on March 4, 2022, after the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine. This article of the Russian Criminal Code contradicts the Constitution of Russia, as well as the basic principles of law, human rights activists stated. "The wording of the article does not allow us to determine in advance which statements are lawful and which are prohibited. A citizen cannot know in advance which of his statements, what information, may be considered false in this context," they emphasized.

At the end of 2025, a court in Cherkessk sentenced lawyer and activist Ramazan Mkhtse in absentia to eight years in prison, finding him guilty of disseminating false information about the Russian military motivated by political hatred.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/422607