A Russian court has fined the lead singer for the classic Russian rock group DDT 50,000 rubles ($800) for harshly criticizing President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine during a concert.
Yury Shevchuk was not present at the August 16 hearing in Ufa, the capital of the Russian region of Bashkortostan, but his lawyer, Aleksandr Peredruk, read out a statement from his client.
"I, Yury Shevchuk, have been always against wars in any country at any time. I have spoken against wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Georgia, Ossetia, Karabakh, Iraq, etc...I believe that any problems and complications of a political nature between countries and peoples must be solved by diplomatic methods...I am also against the war in the Donbas that has been underway for eight years and the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine," Shevchuk's statement said.
Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation" and has made it illegal to refer to it as a war.
Before the hearing, Pavel Chikov, the chief of the legal defense organization Agora, placed Shevchuk's written statement on Telegram.
Peredruk said the court's ruling will be appealed.
Prosecutors charged Shevchuk in May under a law passed shortly after the February 24 invasion, criminalizing public statements that are deemed to discredit the armed forces.
During a DDT concert in Ufa in May, Shevchuk harshly criticized President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
"The Motherland is not the president's ass that one must lather and kiss all the time," Shevchuk said at the concert. “The Motherland is a beggar, an old woman that sells potatoes at the railway station. That is what the Motherland is.”
Shevchuk was loudly applauded by the audience. Videos of his statements went viral on Russian social media channels.
The law that Putin signed in March calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian Army that leads to "serious consequences" is 15 years in prison.
It also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.
DDT was founded by Shevchuk in the early 1980s in Ufa and he has written most of its songs over the years.