Deputies protected Russian National Guard volunteers from fakes and discrediting

The State Duma on Thursday approved in the first reading the second part of the package of bills on Russian Guard volunteers, which provides for liability for discrediting them and disseminating deliberately false information about their activities. After the amendments come into force, all participants in the SVO will have a single legal status and the same set of social guarantees. During the discussion, deputies were interested in whether criticism of employees of the Russian Guard for exceeding their authority would now be criminally punishable, but the authors of the project assured that they would not be imprisoned for criticism.

On September 22, a group of senators and deputies from United Russia (UR) submitted to the State Duma plastic bag of five bills allowing the National Guard to create volunteer formations. October 17 Duma accepted in the first reading, the first part of the package is the main bill, as well as amendments to the Labor and Tax Codes, extending to volunteer guardsmen and members of their families the amount of social guarantees, benefits and compensation already provided for volunteers entering into contracts with the Ministry of Defense. And on October 19, the turn came to protect the volunteers of the Russian Guard from fakes and discredit by adopting amendments to the Criminal Code (CC) and the Code of Administrative Violations (CAO).

“The entire package of bills must be adopted simultaneously, so that the volunteers of the Russian Guard are covered not only by social guarantees, but also by the mechanisms of their legal protection, absolutely similar to what is happening today in relation to volunteers of the armed forces,” explained the co-author of the initiatives in his report, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein (ER).

Mr. Khinshtein noted that amendments are being made to those provisions of the Criminal Code that already stipulate responsibility for illegal acts affecting military personnel and volunteers of the Ministry of Defense.

Now they will also apply to Russian National Guard volunteers.

We are talking about articles 207.3 (public dissemination of knowingly false information about the actions of the RF Armed Forces), 280.3 (public actions aimed at discrediting the armed forces) and 284.3 of the Criminal Code (providing assistance in the execution of decisions of international organizations in which the Russian Federation does not participate, or foreign government bodies ). For fakes about the army, you face up to 15 years in prison, for discrediting it – up to 7 years, for helping foreigners in the criminal prosecution of Russian officials – up to 5 years. The authors of the amendments also propose to expand Art. 20.3.3 Code of Administrative Offenses (public actions aimed at discrediting the use of armed forces), including the volunteers of the Russian Guard.

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Legislation Irina Pankina (ER), speaking with a co-report, said that the amendments will ensure “a unified legal regime for the protection of all categories of participants in a special military operation.” But a number of deputies had doubts about the unity of legal norms.

Thus, Alexey Kurinny (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) asked the authors what the general purpose of the existence of such units is, especially since “one of them (PMC Wagner.”— “Kommersant”) most recently participated in mutiny against state power.”

“Do we still need a single structure or the existence of various kinds of volunteer units?” – asked the communist. Alexander Khinshtein agreed that unity of command is necessary, “and that is why our country has one supreme commander in chief.” He also emphasized that in the Northern Military District zone, the units of the Russian Guard “are not independent in decision-making, but carry out general tasks and decisions made by the command.” “And for the record: I am not aware of a rebellion organized by volunteer units of the Ministry of Defense,” added Mr. Khinshtein. “If you are talking about June of this year, then completely different people took part in the rebellion.”

Oleg Leonov (New People) wondered whether people who like posts on social networks that contain deliberately false information will be punished (New People have also developed a bill that abolishes liability for “expressing emotions in the form of tags for publications” in March, but the government gave it a negative review).

Alexander Khinshtein responded by recalling that responsibility for the behavior of citizens on the Internet is “a subject for a separate serious conversation.”

Finally, Vyacheslav Markhaev (KPRF) asked whether criticism of a National Guard representative for exceeding his authority would be classified as an action aimed at discrediting. “The legal structure that already exists today and the emerging practice answers these questions,” Mr. Khinshtein assured. “I don’t know of examples when criticism, and not the dissemination of deliberately false information, became the basis for bringing a person to criminal responsibility.”

As a result, 340 deputies voted for the amendments to the Criminal Code with five abstentions, and the amendments to the Administrative Code were approved in the first reading by 333 votes, with three parliamentarians abstaining.

Ksenia Veretennikova