Russian occupation forces detained man in Melitopol over online comments posted in 2022
Russian security forces in occupied Melitopol detained a local resident over comments posted on Telegram in 2022.
Screenshot from a video, released by Russian security forces, showing the detention of the local residentThe detainee is a 39-year-old man whose name has not been disclosed.
Russian security forces claim that in September 2022, he posted messages in a public Telegram group for local residents. The occupation authorities classified them as “public calls to the performance of terrorist acts”.
Russian security forces released a video of the detention showing the man being escorted into a Ukrainian police station seized by Russian forces. They also released footage of his so-called confession. ZMINA has previously explained in detail why Russians produce staged videos featuring Ukrainians detained under occupation.
A criminal case was opened against the 39-year-old Melitopol resident under Article 205.2(2) (“Public calls to the performance of terrorist acts, public justification of terrorism or propaganda of terrorism”) of the Russian Criminal Code. The man faces up to seven years in prison.
Over the past two months, ZMINA has documented a number of cases in the occupied territories involving comments posted on social media:
- A man in occupied Crimea was sentenced to six and a half years in a penal colony over online comments.
- Russian security forces detained a resident of occupied Melitopol district over online comments posted three years earlier.
- The FSB detained a man in temporarily occupied Sevastopol over online comments about the Balaklava Thermal Power Plant.
- Russian authorities also sentenced another Sevastopol resident to five and a half years in prison over comments about the illegally constructed by Russian occupiers Kerch Bridge.
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