On March 16, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced the initiation of several criminal cases over the publication of “knowingly false information about the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” on Instagram, social networks and instant messengers.
A criminal case has been opened against Veronika Belotserkovskaya, author of popular cookbooks, publisher, entrepreneur and well-known blogger.
“In her actions, there are signs of a crime under paragraph “e” of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public dissemination based on political hatred or enmity under the guise of reliable reports of knowingly false information about the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).
According to the investigation, in March 2022, Veronika Belotserkovskaya published a number of posts on her public page on the social network Instagram. Under the guise of reliable reports, they contained deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to destroy cities and the civilian population of Ukraine, including children, in the course of a special military operation on the territory of this state.
Thus, with her publications, she discredited the state authorities and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. According to available information, Belotserkovskaya is outside the Russian Federation, in connection with this, the issue of declaring her on the international wanted list is being decided.
The press service of the Investigative Committee also reported that, on the basis of the regional FSB of Russia, criminal cases were initiated against a resident of the closed city of Seversk and a resident of the city of Tomsk. According to the investigation, they published “deliberately false information” on social networks and instant messengers about the losses of Russian military personnel, as well as about their actions on the territory of Ukraine.