Switch Language

The court awarded Perm opposition activist Konstantin Okunev compensation of one rouble (US$0.01) for police inaction in a criminal defamation case against him. This was reported by “Perm 36.6.”

In 2022, Viktor Korovkin, the head of the local branch of the “Cyber Front Z” movement, accused Okunev on his VKontakte page of allegedly organising an unauthorised rally. In response, the opposition activist filed a defamation complaint against him. Law enforcement carried out an expert review and confirmed that Korovkin’s statements did indeed contain defamatory content.

The authorities opened a criminal case for defamation on social media (part 2, article 128.1 of the Criminal Code), but not against Korovkin—rather, against an “anonymous user.” The police justified this by saying they were unable to identify the author of the post. Okunev found the personal phone number, address, and workplace of the person responsible, but was unable to convince the police that this individual was the “unknown user” referred to in the criminal case. Later, the case was closed due to the statute of limitations expiring.

Okunev decided to file a lawsuit over police inaction and delays in the case. In the end, the court sided with the opposition activist and ordered that he be paid one rouble. Okunev’s lawyer, Ivan Khozyaykin, said they were satisfied with the court’s decision.

“The point of the lawsuit was to establish the fact that bureaucratic delays occurred. That’s why the claim was for a symbolic 1 rouble. As a result, our client’s demands were fully met. At the end, we heard what rarely happens: to grant the claim for compensation for a violation of reasonable timeframes in judicial proceedings in full,” the lawyer told the Zvezda Telegram channel.

Konstantin Okunev is a former deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Perm Krai. He has previously been fined on multiple occasions over social media posts. In July 2023, he was fined 250,000 roubles (US$2,700) for a post giving a negative assessment of Vladimir Putin. At that time, he was charged under the article on disrespecting society and the state (part 5, article 20.1 of the Administrative Code).