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The police have opened a criminal case against businessman and blogger Andrey Malikov from Belgorod, a regional centre in western Russia, on charges of defamation (Part 2, Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code) over a post on his Telegram channel, reports the publication Fonar, citing the decision to open the case.
The injured party in the case is Vladimir Bazarov, the former deputy governor of Belgorod region who oversaw the construction sector. The publication quotes from the decision:
“An unidentified person, in an unidentified location, through publications posted on the Internet, namely in the 'Malikov' Telegram channel, being aware of the social danger and illegality of their criminal actions, foreseeing the inevitability of socially dangerous consequences and desiring their occurrence, knowingly having information about the unreliability of the information they disseminated, deliberately distributed to an unspecified group of people deliberately false statements defaming the honour and dignity, as well as undermining the business reputation of Vladimir Vasilyevich Bazarov, at the time acting deputy governor of Kursk Region, which contained the claim that Vladimir Vasilyevich Bazarov had been forcibly detained and placed in custody (arrested), which does not correspond to reality.”
The publication Abireg writes that recently four officials from Belgorod have filed defamation complaints against Malikov: Bazarov (who left the regional government in February 2025), Minister for Public Communications Oksana Tarantova, Finance Minister Natalia Sharolapova, and Minister of Culture Maksim Shaposhnikov. In recent days, the blogger has been questioned regarding Shaposhnikov’s complaint, which concerned a post about his work as minister and his personal life.
Malikov has said he believes what is happening amounts to pressure on independent journalism and an attempt to limit discussion of pressing topics in the region.
16 July A second criminal case was opened against Andrey Malikov—this time for public insult of a government official (Article 319 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by Fonar and noted by RusNews.
The reason for the case was a post on Malikov’s channel in which, according to investigators, he used “obscene language” in relation to acting Minister of Culture of Belgorod Region Maksim Shaposhnikov. An investigator stated that the blogger acted with “direct criminal intent.”
RusNews clarifies that the post discussed Shaposhnikov’s sexual orientation and said that he was in a relationship with his deputy. The post also included screenshots showing the official’s Instagram subscriptions to LGBT content. Andrey Malikov deleted the publication on 9 July.
On his channel, the blogger stated that there was “neither an insult nor intent” in the post.
“I will ask for informational support from federal media and bloggers. I promise, they won’t get away with any lawlessness against me,” said Andrey Malikov.