Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has ordered the arrest of blogger Ilya Remeslo in a criminal case over what investigators describe as “fake” information about the Russian army motivated by political hatred. The case was opened under Paragraph “d,” Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code. Defense lawyer Sergei Badamshin reported the arrest.
According to the case materials, the charges are based on posts Remeslo published on his Telegram channel in March. In those messages, he criticized Russian troops, law enforcement officers, and Vladimir Putin. In particular, he wrote that the war against Ukraine, launched as a “police operation,” had already claimed “certainly 1-2 million victims.”
Remeslo referred to Putin as “illegitimate leadership” and as a person with a “mad, almost pathological craving for luxury.” To show that he was speaking deliberately, he posted video messages saying that his mental condition was normal.
Despite that, the blogger spent a month in a psychiatric hospital. After leaving the facility, he reportedly continued criticizing the authorities.
Lawyer Sergei Badamshin said that Remeslo is accused over “that very manifesto [criticizing the authorities] published exactly 4 months ago.”
Ilya Remeslo is 42. He previously became known for initiatives targeting Alexei Navalny and the FBK. In particular, it was Remeslo’s complaint that led to the criminal case against Navalny over allegedly slandering veteran Ignat Artemenko.
Pensioner Mikhail Kostenko, who was listed as the victim in another case against Navalny — over alleged fraud involving donations — said that he had not written the complaint himself and that it was drafted by Remeslo, who was friends with his son-in-law. The blogger also did not hide that he had worked with the presidential administration. In an interview with Ksenia Sobchak this spring, he said that through structures linked to former domestic policy official Konstantin Kostin, he received 8 million rubles a year.