(Reuters) – The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, on Tuesday passed an amendment punishing criticism of “volunteer” groups fighting in Ukraine, which aims to “protect” the mercenaries of the private company Wagner, very involved in the current battle around the town of Bakhmout.
This amendment, which still needs to be approved by the upper house (Council of the Federation) and signed into law by Vladimir Putin, would add to legislation passed shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, censoring criticism against armed forces.
According to this legislation, discrediting the Russian army is punishable by a five-year prison sentence and disseminating false information about it is punishable by a fifteen-year prison sentence.
In January, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin asked parliament to ban negative publications about the paramilitary group in the media by amending the criminal code, a request quickly accepted by Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.
The Russian prosecutor’s office has already opened more than 5,800 cases against people accused of discrediting the armed forces, according to the human rights group OVD-Info.
(Reuters office, French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse, editing by Tangi Salaün)
©2023 Thomson Reuters, all rights reserved. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. “Reuters” and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies.