Volunteers will be covered from the rear – Newspaper Kommersant No. 36 (7481) dated 03/02/2023

On Thursday, the State Duma will consider amendments on administrative and criminal penalties for discrediting volunteers participating in a special military operation. The amendments were introduced on Wednesday by a group of United Russia deputies led by Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. Earlier, the founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin addressed the speaker with a request to accept such changes. True, the Duma still finds it difficult to say for sure whether the updated articles of the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses will cover the publication of information about the criminal records of volunteers, as Mr. Prigozhin asked.

About the introduction of “amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses on liability for discrediting participants in a special military operation” Telegram channel on the morning of March 1, Vyacheslav Volodin himself. In the profile committee on legislation, according to Kommersant’s sources, there were no amendments at that moment, but later information appeared in the Duma database that a meeting of this committee was held on March 1 and the amendments were supported by its members.

In addition to the speaker, the authors were his deputy Irina Yarovaya, the heads of the security and defense committees Vasily Piskarev and Andrey Kartapolov (all United Russia). Amendments have been made to bills already adopted earlier in the first reading on other topics, which should speed up their adoption.

• Deputies propose to distribute Art. 207.3 CC (public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation) and Art. 280.3 (public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the RF Armed Forces in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintaining international peace and security) to “providing assistance by volunteer formations, organizations or individuals in fulfilling the tasks assigned to the armed forces of the Russian Federation”.
• At the same time, the punishment under these articles is also toughened: from three to five years imprisonment for spreading false information and repeated discrediting and five to seven years old – if discrediting resulted in death by negligence or harm to the health of citizens, mass violations of public order, etc.
• Maximum Punishment under Art. 207.3 will remain the same – imprisonment for up to 15 years (with grave consequences).
• Similar changes are made to Art. 20.3.3 Administrative Code (public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the RF Armed Forces).

Recall that under this article, citizens face a fine of up to 50 thousand rubles, officials – up to 200 thousand rubles, legal entities – up to 500 thousand rubles. And criminal liability for discrediting occurs for a repeated violation within a year after bringing to administrative responsibility.

Vasily Piskarev said on his Telegram channel on February 7 that the security committee had prepared these amendments and sent them to the relevant committee, but this information was not confirmed in the Kommersant committee.

According to a Kommersant source in the Duma, the amendments were coordinated with the presidential state legal department. Mr. Piskarev emphasized that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of PMC Wagner, asked the speaker of the Duma to find a legislative solution to this issue.

Recall that on January 24, the businessman asked for amendments to the Criminal Code regarding former convicts taking part in hostilities in Ukraine. He proposed to ban public actions aimed at discrediting them, publications of a negative nature against them, as well as dissemination of information about their past offenses (the letter was published on the Telegram channel of Mr. Prigozhin’s press service). As the entrepreneur explained, some media outlets, bloggers and Telegram channels “seek out” and publish negative information about previously convicted volunteers, expose them as “second-class” people, denying them the right to atone for their guilt before society.

The involvement of prisoners in PMC “Wagner” became known last summer. Then it was reported that they were promised a pardon after six months of service. And on January 5, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that the first group of prisoners who joined the PMC had their criminal records removed.

It is not clear from the statement of Vyacheslav Volodin whether the updated articles of the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses will include information about previous convictions of volunteers. A source close to one of the authors says that “there is no mention of this in the amendments, but this is a matter of law enforcement.” Difficult to answer this question and in the profile committee.

It is difficult now to say what can be considered as discrediting volunteer formations, Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora international human rights group, told Kommersant. “I think that public negative statements about PMC Wagner can now be the basis for persecution. So far, the overwhelming majority of police and courts consider simply anti-war statements to be discredited,” he said. If the information about the criminal record is reliable and does not discredit the volunteer formation as a whole, but is presented as an objective fact, then this cannot be a basis for prosecution, says Professor Leonid Golovko, head of the department of criminal procedure at Moscow State University. If, according to him, such a phrase as “all Wagnerians are criminals” sounds, then this is already discrediting. The lawyer also noted that these amendments equalize the regular army and volunteer formations, which is quite logical.

Later on Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin sent another appeal to Speaker Volodin (also published in the Telegram channel press service of the businessman), in which he asked to review the amendments that had just been submitted to the Duma. In his opinion, the updated articles should not apply to the highest command staff of volunteer detachments, PMC “Wagner” and the Ministry of Defense, since “otherwise, any public and constructive criticism of their actions could lead to prosecution.” Recall that Mr. Prigozhin himself has repeatedly criticized the actions of the Ministry of Defense.

Both bills will be considered in the second reading on March 2. The Duma factions did not express any objections on Wednesday. The deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Alexander Yushchenko told Kommersant that the faction would “of course support” the amendments, the leadership of the LDPR and Just Russia – For Truth factions also told reporters about this.

Maria Makutina, Ksenia Veretennikova