The Final Statement
‘Not a single person has died as a result of my VKontakte posts, and not a single house has been destroyed. I don’t think the same can be said of Putin and Igor Konashenkov, the Defence Ministry’s spokesperson, and their public statements.’
I will begin with a phrase I have repeated many times during these court hearings: ‘I categorically deny my guilt and consider my criminal case to be fabricated.’ The only things I am charged with are posts I made on my personal VKontakte page as a private individual. Nevertheless, I believe this criminal case is an act of revenge for my journalistic work.
I refuse to call black white. From the very beginning of the so-called ‘special military operation’, I considered it a crime against the Ukrainian people. Over the past year, the evidence of Russian war crimes committed during the first days of the ‘special military operation’ has only grown. Everything stated in the posts I am charged with publishing is true. Neither the falsity of the information I posted on VKontakte nor, even less so, its ‘knowingly false’ nature was proven during the investigation or the trial.
Not a single person has died as a result of my VKontakte posts, and not a single house has been destroyed. I do not think the same can be said of Putin and Igor Konashenkov, the Defence Ministry’s spokesperson, and their public statements. It is precisely these statements that form the basis of the prosecution’s case. As I have repeatedly stated at previous hearings, I refuse to regard information coming from Putin and his subordinates, particularly Konashenkov, as knowingly truthful.
In my oral testimony, I gave numerous examples showing that Putin and his subordinates spread information both during and before the ‘special military operation’ that was false, and perhaps even knowingly false. Let me give just one example to refresh your memory: according to official reports, conscripts were not taking part in the ‘special military operation’. Yet in the very first days of the SMO, it became clear that this was not true.
Furthermore, in this case, the element of ‘knowingly’ implies that I was familiar with Konashenkov’s briefings and Putin’s speeches. But it is not part of my job to follow this kind of content. The investigators did not even attempt to prove that I had watched or read anything of the sort. Let me emphasise once again: I was unaware of these briefings and speeches when I published the posts I am charged with. The investigators neither proved otherwise nor even attempted to do so.
I consider the law on military ‘fake news’ to be contrived. It was drafted in haste. Its wording is ambiguous. When I first read it, I (and I was not the only one) thought that it actually designated as criminals those who described the Russian armed forces as peacekeepers. Oksana Vlasyuk, the investigator who initially handled my case, smiled and shrugged when I pointed out this discrepancy during my first interrogation on 21 March.
By the time this law was adopted, the Russian Armed Forces had already existed for more than 30 years (I am counting from the establishment of the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet space). Why had we managed perfectly well without this law until March 2022? Is it really that necessary? And I am not even sure that the armed forces need to be specially protected from social media users.
To see that something is wrong with this law, all you have to do is look at the penalties it provides for. In my case, the punishment can be up to three years in prison, compulsory correctional labour, or a fine ranging from 700,000 to 1.5 million roubles. Starting at 700,000. Previously, fines of this magnitude were imposed only on legal entities (I am referring here to the articles of the Criminal Code applicable to journalists and editorial offices). The very scale of these figures shows that this law is not intended to regulate anything but to intimidate.
Such severity might be attributed to ‘wartime laws’. But according to official statements, Russia is still conducting a ‘special military operation’. It is symbolic that the ‘special operation’ was preceded by the dismantling of both Memorial organisations.
The new anti-fake-news legislation is another escalation in the repressive policies that began in Russia more than ten years ago. The abolition of elections at various levels, the banning of rallies, followed by solo pickets, the deprivation of people’s right to express their views on political issues online, the constitutional coup–all of this made the so-called ‘special military operation’ possible. It has brought nothing but grief to the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and shame upon the Russian government.
The new anti-fake-news legislation (and I am referring not only to the article under which I am charged, but also to administrative and criminal penalties for ‘discrediting’ the army) is akin to a weapon of mass destruction: it is deployed on every front at once. Of course, it is a powerful tool for fighting pacifists. On 4 March 2022, when Putin signed the law on ‘fake news’ about the army, the regime’s enforcers breathed a sigh of relief. Before that, they had been improvising as best they could–fining pacifist picketers for violating COVID restrictions or detaining people for posts they had published ten years earlier.
Another area in which these new laws are applicable is virtually every Russian who has shown even the slightest degree of civic engagement. The number of administrative cases is already in the thousands, while criminal cases number in the hundreds. An XXL law! It can be used to send opposition politician Ilya Yashin to prison for many years. It can also be used against less well-known people: St Petersburg art activist Sasha Skochilenko, municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov, and journalists Maria Ponomarenko and Mikhail Afanasyev. The secret of its universal applicability is simple: today, all decent people in Russia oppose the ‘special military operation’.
As far as I know, not a single acquittal has yet been handed down under the article I am charged with. Several cases have fallen apart, but in those cases the defendants were accused of acts committed before 4 March, before the law came into force.
Your Honour, I am saying all this to make you think: is everything really in order with this law, under which I have been charged? Can laws like this even exist? Does the boundless scope and extreme severity of this law not trouble you as a lawyer? Does what is happening today not remind you of the Stalin-era repressions? Can you really not see that this law encroaches upon freedom of speech and contradicts the Constitution?
When Gleb Shevtsov, an officer of the Centre for Combating Extremism, known as Centre ‘E’, appeared here as a witness, my lawyer asked him how many Kuzbass social media users who had published pacifist posts the Centre ‘E’ had identified. Shevtsov replied that there were many. My lawyer then asked what criteria had been used to decide whose cases to pursue. You, Your Honour, struck out that question. But as far as my case is concerned, I do have a theory.
As I said earlier, I believe this criminal case is an act of revenge for my journalistic work. Evidence of this includes the fact that photocopies of my press cards and my articles about torture in Kuzbass penal colonies and the 1989 miners’ strike were included in the case file (the articles were published by Siberia.Realities and Taiga.info, respectively). Let me remind you that these articles were published long before 24 February and have absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine.
At the first court hearings on the measure of restraint, which took place in Kemerovo, I was astonished by the investigator’s and prosecutor’s wild imagination and creative approach to the case. At the hearing, I was accused of practically everything under the sun, including, for some reason, justifying terrorism. Most of these allegations had nothing to do with the substance of the charges against me or with objective reality. It seems they were guided by the principle: arrest first, then figure out what the person is guilty of.
I always try to understand other people. In today’s Russia, this makes life unbearable. During the search of my apartment in Prokopyevsk, the uninvited guests behaved like boors, but I still found myself thinking: ‘What if the Centre ‘E’ officers and their assistants genuinely believe that I am a criminal?’ However, on the way to the Investigative Committee in Kemerovo, Stanislav Shlagov, an officer of the Centre ‘E’, tried to reassure me: ‘Don’t worry. They’ll give you a written undertaking not to leave town, and then you’ll run off to join your friends in Georgia.’ I became fully convinced that the Centre ‘E’ officers were free of any ideological convictions. They are simply cynics, ready to serve any government.
Ruslan Shalimov, the investigator who took charge of the investigative team a few days after the criminal case against me was opened, said to my lawyer while showing me the case materials: ‘But there are people who genuinely believe in this…’. From the context of the conversation, it was clear that he meant people who believe that people like me are criminals. Obviously, Ruslan Shalimov does not think so himself. But he was ordered to fabricate a criminal case, and he did so.
In addition to the Russian Defence Ministry’s briefings and Putin’s speeches, the investigators and the prosecution consider the testimony of prosecution witnesses to be evidence of my guilt. At previous hearings, my lawyer and I explained in detail why we do not believe these witnesses. They regularly testify against Kuzbass opposition activists who have no connection with one another. The written statements against me look as though they were produced using the same template. Entire paragraphs are repeated from one statement to another.
Almost all the prosecution witnesses have known Centre ‘E’ officers Gleb Shevtsov and Stanislav Shlagov, who gathered the materials for my criminal case, for many years. Each prosecution witness’s written statement differs substantially from the oral testimony they gave at the court hearings. One witness, Valeria Sarana, even stated that one of the posts I am charged with was published in 2018. The prosecutor had to ask her leading questions for quite some time before she corrected herself.
I consider my case fabricated because the evidence of my guilt has been fabricated–namely, the testimony of the prosecution witnesses. All the witnesses were warned that they would face criminal liability for knowingly giving false testimony. Let us remember that.
The other evidence is no more convincing. I do not understand what the investigators were doing for two months. Neither my whereabouts at the time the posts were published nor the device from which they were posted has been established, in my view. I spoke about this in detail at the previous hearing.
My entire criminal case can be summed up by a phrase familiar from primary school: ‘fitting the facts to the answer’. According to the version presented by the prosecutor several hearings ago, the prosecution witnesses discovered my VKontakte posts and notified the Centre ‘E’ of them almost simultaneously. Having compared these witnesses’ oral and written statements, I have come to the conclusion that it was the Centre ‘E’ itself that discovered my posts and initiated the criminal case, and then found stand-in witnesses. In this regard, I find it almost touching that the linguistic examination of the posts was conducted by Irina Zubkova, an FSB officer.
I will not recount the war crimes committed by Russians in Ukraine. At my lawyer’s request, publications by independent media outlets and documents from international human rights organisations exposing these crimes have been added to the case file. I hope, Your Honour, that you have familiarised yourself with these materials. I will only add that more Russian soldiers have already died in this war than during the nine years of the war in Afghanistan. This is the minimum figure cited by independent journalists. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are also dying–people whom Putin’s supporters cynically call the ‘brotherly people’.
In my written and oral testimony, I rejected the accusation that I was ‘misrepresenting the aims and objectives of the SMO’. I explained that I did not understand and still do not understand these aims and objectives, and therefore cannot ‘misrepresent’ them. I would point out that Russian officials regularly announce new aims and objectives. It feels as though they started the war first and only afterwards began inventing reasons for it, and still have not come up with a convincing explanation. And are there even any aims and objectives worth such sacrifices?
Since 24 February, Russia has been losing its technical and creative intelligentsia–people who reject its aggressive policies. This includes world-famous individuals who had tied their futures to Russia. Everything young, modern and talented is being driven out of the country, and they are even told: ‘It’s better without you!’ Everything honest and sincere is being trampled underfoot. Conformism, cynicism and denunciation are being cultivated–just think of the prosecution witnesses and the Centre ‘E’ officers. And don’t forget Ruslan Shalimov.
Hundreds of thousands of young men have left Russia to avoid being drafted. I do not believe there are that many cowards in Russia. These people are leaving because they do not want to become murderers and occupiers.
The heroes–or rather, antiheroes–of this war are Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin. The former boasted that he had killed his first Russian when he was either 14 or 16. The latter is associated with extrajudicial executions. I do not remember seeing a single statue of Themis in this courthouse. Perhaps they will soon put up statues of Prigozhin holding a sledgehammer. It is unclear on what legal grounds Wagner Group fighters were released from penal colonies to be sent to the front. The law is being openly trampled underfoot in Russia. Does that not trouble you, Your Honour?
I feel awkward stating what is common knowledge, but I have the impression that neither the judge nor the prosecutor knows any of this.
What happened on 24 February was unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine. The sooner it ends, the better. This war is needed by no one except Putin, who will very likely lose power when it ends.
By silencing those who oppose the war, you are helping it continue.
Over the past year, I have begun to feel like an old man. I remember Gorbachev’s perestroika. The older generation, who had remained silent about Stalin’s repressions all their lives, used to make excuses: ‘We didn’t know much back then…’. Perhaps some of them genuinely did not know. But when the current regime collapses, that excuse will no longer work. Firstly, this will not be the first time. Secondly, the speed at which information spreads and its accessibility are entirely different today, when everyone has the internet in their pocket. In the 1970s, learning the truth took a great deal of effort and time. Today, by contrast, millions of Russians devote all their energy to shielding themselves from the truth. Playing hide-and-seek with one’s reason and conscience has become a national sport.
At a hearing many weeks ago, I advised you, Your Honour, to install a VPN and start reading at least some independent media. You replied that you did not need my advice. In any case, YouTube has not yet been blocked. If you still have not found out what Putin’s ‘special military operation’ really is, or what the Putin regime as a whole represents, then knowing nothing is your conscious choice. It will not be a mitigating circumstance at the trial where you yourself will be judged, together with those involved in fabricating my criminal case. I hope we live to see that day.
Of course, history knows examples of dictatorial regimes that lasted for decades. But even so, by convicting me, you are helping ensure that we all live in a poor, unfree and intimidated country. Moreover, you are committing a crime against your own profession.
There is an element of censorship in my case. The same was true of the measure of restraint imposed on me back in Kemerovo, which you, Your Honour, extended twice. As an additional punishment, the prosecutor has requested a two-year ban on publishing anything online.
You have already crossed one year off my life, effectively depriving me of the opportunity to work as a journalist. Now you want to cross off another two. There is something symbolic about that. In Putin’s Russia, the only thing one can write without fear of punishment is a denunciation.
As for the main punishment, the prosecutor has requested eleven months of correctional labour. And, as the prosecutor rightly observed, I have not embarked on the path of reform.
That is why I support her proposal. Give me eleven months of correctional labour.
Militarists and falsifiers must be brought to justice.
Freedom for Russia.
Peace for Ukraine.
3 March 2023
Rudnichny District Court, Prokopyevsk, Russia
Source: Meduza
Read more about the case: Taiga.info
Photo: @t.me / zauralom1