Ilya Yashin received support from below – Newspaper Kommersant No. 223 (7424) dated 01.12.

The Meshchansky Court of Moscow on Wednesday continued to consider the criminal case of the former head of the Krasnoselsky district, Ilya Yashin (included in the register of foreign agents), accused of spreading fakes about the Russian army. The experts called by the defense stated that the defendant expressed his personal opinion and therefore could not be accused of spreading knowingly false information. And three more witnesses positively described Mr. Yashin’s public activities, rejecting the accusations against him of inciting political hatred.

The second hearing in the case of Ilya Yashin in the Meshchansky Court began with watching a video released on April 7 on the YouTube channel of the opposition leader about the events in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, which formed the basis of the accusation. After that, five defense witnesses testified in court.

Experts were interrogated first. Linguist Igor Zharkov, in particular, noted that in the video, the oppositionist expressed his own and expressed someone else’s opinion, and did not make any statements, as stated in the examination of the prosecution set out the day before.

Support for one and criticism of another position is also not a statement or a fact and therefore cannot be checked for compliance with reality, the expert emphasized and concluded: “Thus, the oppositionist could not disseminate knowingly false information.”

And psychologist Veronika Konstantinova added that the information cannot be considered false just because it contradicts any position, even if it is the position of the Ministry of Defense.

After that, the court interrogated three supporters of the oppositionist. The first to speak was the 75-year-old Hero of Russia, space tester Sergei Nefedov, whom Ilya Yashin himself described as a “real patriot”. Mr. Nefedov said that he was impressed by the activities of the politician and in his video he did not notice any violations of the law. And the former deputy of the Krasnoselsky district, Alexei Mokhov, spoke about the exceptionally positive results of the work of the defendant as the head of the municipal district and, in particular, about the social taxi, for which the politician gave his company car.

The last witness was an activist from the Krasnoselsky district, Irina Aksenova. She told the court that it was the oppositionist who helped speed up the overhaul in her house, but after Ilya Yashin and his team left the council, the deputies stopped dealing with the problems of residents.

In addition, none of the respondents could recall cases when the defendant incited political hatred for the authorities.

In this regard, Aleksey Mokhov recalled that Mr. Yashin himself, as the head of the municipal district, was also part of this system of power and conscientiously carried out the powers entrusted to him – for example, he led the draft campaign.

The defense also tried to summon to court as a witness the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, who expressed Russia’s official position on the tragedy in Bucha, but the court did not satisfy this petition. At the next meeting, scheduled for Thursday, the interrogation of Ilya Yashin and the debate of the parties are expected.

Kira Heifetz