37-year-old Yuri Kokhovets was presented with criminal charges for spreading “fakes” about the Russian army.

On March 23, 2023, a criminal case was initiated against Yuri Kokhovets, a 37-year-old resident of Moscow, for his statements about the war in Ukraine during a street interview about tensions between Russia and NATO conducted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in July 2022.

During the interview, Yuri Kokhovets stated that Russia was "bombing shopping centers" and that the military were shooting civilians without reason, suggesting that the reduction of those tensions depends on the actions of the Russian government. According to the investigation, during the interview he provided "knowingly false information" about the actions of the Russian army in Bucha.

On March 25, 2023, Yuri was arrested and taken to a police station in the Yaroslavsky District, where he was informed that he was being charged and was made to give a written undertaking not to leave the place as a preventive measure. Yuri was held in police custody until midday on March 27, when he was released after being imposed a fine of 500 rubles for minor hooliganism (Article 20.1 of the Administrative Offences Code).

Initially, he was charged with spreading "fakes" about the Russian army under the first part of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, which provides for punishment by imprisonment for up to five years, but later the charges were toughened. Now, he is charged with spreading such “fakes” based on hatred or enmity under the second part of this Article, which is punishable by up to ten years in prison. The charges were requalified after a linguistic expert review conducted by mathematics teacher Natalia Kryukova and translator Alexander Tarasov, who found the motives of hatred and enmity in Kokhovets' statements. Previously, Kryukova and Tarasov had acted as experts in the case on the liquidation of the Memorial Human Rights Center.

It looks like the Russian authorities are organizing show trials under new provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to serve as a deterrent to others. Through this case, the authorities obviously want to ensure that no Russian citizen dares to say anything against the actions of the Putin regime during surveys, and hence 100 percent of those interviewed support the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.