A criminal case has been opened against blogger Ilya Remeslo over the dissemination of military “fakes” under Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code. His detention was reported by TASS, citing a law enforcement source, and by lawyer Sergey Badamshin.
“They are taking him to Moscow,” Badamshin wrote on his Telegram channel “VLager.”
It has not been specified which exact statements formed the basis of the case. The authorities have not publicly disclosed the substance of the accusation.
On the night of March 17–18, 2026, Remeslo published a post titled “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” In it, he said the war with Ukraine had already claimed “exactly 1–2 million victims,” that sanctions had harmed the Russian economy, and that the system had, in his words, “gone mad” because of internet blocking. He also wrote that absolute power had corrupted Putin, who has ruled since 1999, and that he neither respects nor wants to hear voters.
The day after this series of critical posts, Remeslo was hospitalized in Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 in St. Petersburg, according to Fontanka. A month later, the lawyer was released.
In a later post, Remeslo wrote that “harsh criticism of the country’s top officials comes at a price,” but added that he “does not regret what he did.” At the same time, he said that if he were writing it now, he would use “more measured and balanced wording, without personal attacks,” and said he intended to correct that going forward. He also referred to the harsh conditions in the hospital, which he said were difficult “even compared with a penal colony.”
Before these events, Ilya Remeslo was known as one of the complainants against politician Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation. In March 2026, pro-government blogger Roman Nosikov publicly complained about Remeslo’s informing activities after Nosikov himself was charged over alleged ties to an “undesirable” organization for quoting the Telegram channel SOTA.