A court in Karachay–Cherkessia has sentenced local resident Mukharab Shebzukhоv to 15 days of administrative arrest after he had made comments on social media saying ‘[Russian President Vladimir] Putin sends you like pigs to the slaughter’ in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Khabez District Court of the republic sentenced Shebzukhov on 26 February under an article on inciting hatred or enmity.
According to the prosecution and officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism at the Interior Ministry in Karachay–Cherkessia, Shebzukhоv posted comments on the social network VKontakte in the public communities ChP Cherkessk/KChR (Emergency Cherkessk), Adyghe Dunayim Shypseuri (‘Circassians Around the World’), and Meeting Place on NTV/FK/NonPro (Mesto Vstrechi).
As stated in the court ruling, the comments, posted from a Samsung mobile phone, contained critical statements about Putin and the actions of the Russian personnel in Ukraine.
In particular, the court decision cites the following phrases that investigators say were written by Shebzukhоv: ‘Putin sends you like pigs to the slaughter’ and ‘he is destroying the young’. In another comment, according to the document, it was said that the war ‘is destroying a young nation’.
The court referred to the results of a linguistic examination conducted at the request of the investigation. According to the expert report, the texts contain statements in which ‘the president of the Russian Federation is negatively assessed’, as well as ‘a group of persons united by nationality, language and origin — Russians’.
The document states that the negative assessment was expressed both through neutral vocabulary and phraseological expressions, as well as through stylistically marked language. Among the examples cited by the court were the expressions ‘like pigs to the slaughter’, ‘like crawling backwards to Shanghai’, and ‘like feeding puppies’, which were characterised as ‘abusive’ and ‘condemnatory’.
Shebzukhоv told the court that he acknowledged the circumstances described in the case materials but said he did not admit guilt and did not repent.
The ruling notes that the administrative offence was classified as continuing. In such cases, the limitation period for administrative liability is calculated from the moment the offence is discovered by an official authorised to draw up the administrative report.
The court stated that no mitigating or aggravating circumstances were identified in the case.
The sanction under the article of the administrative offences code under which Shebzukhоv was arrested provides several types of punishment: an administrative fine of between ₽10,000–₽20,000 ($125-$250), community service of up to 100 hours, or 15 days of administrative arrest.
The ruling states that the court considered the imposition of a fine insufficient, and that a more lenient penalty would not ensure the prevention of further offences.
