Peskov announced no changes in the conditions of pardon for participation in the SVO

Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian authorities have not changed the criteria for pardoning those convicted of participating in the military military operation in Ukraine as part of assault brigades. This is how he answered the question whether the conditions for pardoning participants in high-profile crimes will be reviewed. Peskov is quoted by TASS.

The reason for the question was press reports about the pardon of Nikolai Ogolobyak, a member of the Yaroslavl “Satanist sect.” In this regard, the Kremlin official also noted that similar questions have been raised more than once, and at present everyone is “very carefully studying these lists of pardoned persons.”

As Dmitry Peskov noted, this refers to “certain conditions (of pardon), which are associated “with serving a certain time on the front line, participating in assault groups.” And this, according to him, “is followed by a pardon.” There were no changes in this regard, Peskov emphasized.

Previously, similar questions to Peskov concerned the cases of pardoning ex-employee of the Organized Crime Control Department Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, convicted in the case of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, and Vladislav Kanyus, accused of murdering 23-year-old Vera Pekhteleva.

Dmitry Peskov also recalled the existing pardon procedure. In one of its variants, decisions are made by the relevant commissions at various levels, up to the federal level, after which the documents are sent to the president. The second option is that the convicts “atone for their crime with blood on the battlefield” as part of assault brigades, “under bullets, under shells” in the Northern Military District zone.