The prosecutor’s office has dropped some of the charges against St Petersburg local historian Dmitry Vitushkin.

The prosecutor’s office has dropped the charge against St Petersburg local historian Dmitry Vitushkin for disrespecting days of military glory (Part 4, Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code) in connection with his comment about “Leningrad land.” ZakS.ru reports.

Vitushkin was accused over a comment he posted in the “Ingermanlandia” group on VKontakte: “Take your ‘Leningrad land’ to other GROUPS. We do not welcome the glorification of terrorism here.” An expert review conducted six months before the criminal case began in 2023 concluded that this statement expressed clear disrespect towards days of military glory, since: “Every year on 27 January, our country marks the Day of the Complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade (1944).” In court, the prosecutor referred to a new philological and linguistic examination, which found no signs of such disrespect.

The local historian is still being charged with spreading knowingly false information about the activities of the USSR during the Second World War (Subparagraph “v,” Part 2, Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code), due to a comment about the Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, who fought in the Soviet-Finnish War. The comment attributed to Vitushkin said: “Häyhä did not kill a single soldier from his own homeland; on the contrary, he defended it from occupiers who were allies of Nazi Germany (according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact). He succeeded. A worthy example to follow.”

Vitushkin had been in detention since October 2023. In April 2024, he was released under certain restrictions.