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The Orenburg Regional Court has received the case of Natalya Tsareva, who is accused of desecrating symbols of military glory online (Part 4, Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code), reports the SOVA Research Centre.

The first hearing is scheduled for 7 July.

The Investigative Committee announced the case in January 2025, at which point Tsareva was placed under house arrest. On 19 June, the Investigative Committee reported that the investigation had been completed.

According to investigators, in August 2024, Tsareva published an image on one of the social networks where Nazi symbols were placed on top of a St George ribbon. “Furthermore, the image was accompanied by a caption that was historically inaccurate, thereby desecrating a symbol of Russian military glory—the St George ribbon,” the Investigative Committee insists.

The SOVA Centre notes that 71-year-old Natalya Tsareva considers herself a “citizen of the USSR” and describes herself on social media as a co-founder of the “Community of Free Indigenous Peoples of Orenburg Province—a local self-government body based on the zemstvo.” (Orenburg is a city in Russia, near the border with Kazakhstan.)

In August 2024, Tsareva reposted on VKontakte an image with the caption: “During the Second World War, St George ribbons were awarded only in the RUSSIAN corps of Vlasov, who fought on the side of the NAZIS.” The image showed the coat of arms of Nazi Germany with a St George ribbon tied around it, and a photo of the collaborator Ivan Kononov. Tsareva added her own comment to the repost: “THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION DOES NOT HIDE ITS FASCIST SYMBOLISM.”

It was over this same image that last year, a “citizen of the USSR” from Khakassia, Andrey Afanasyev, was convicted. He was sentenced to one year in a penal settlement. (Khakassia is a republic in southern Siberia.)

The SOVA Centre considers the criminal prosecution of Tsareva to be unfounded: “Criminal prosecution is justified only in cases involving crimes that pose a significant danger to society—in particular, those related to the promotion of violence, hatred or discrimination. In our view, Tsareva was criticising the use of the St George ribbon, based on certain, albeit mistaken, beliefs about history, and not in order to justify Nazism.”