A resident of Yekaterinburg, a major city in the Urals, has been placed under house arrest in a case concerning “fake” news about the military.

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow has placed 48-year-old Oleg Elymanov, a resident of Yekaterinburg, under house arrest as a pre-trial restriction in a case concerning “fake” news about the military allegedly motivated by political hatred (Section “d,” Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code). This was reported by “Ostorozhno, novosti” (“Caution, News”). Elymanov’s case file has appeared on the court’s website.

Exactly what charges are being brought against him remains unknown. In 2014 and 2016, Elymanov posted content supporting Donbas and separatists on his old VKontakte and Twitter pages, and at the same time criticised Russian politicians.

As “Ostorozhno, novosti” notes, his social media accounts featured calls for the “final capitulation of Ukrofascists in Lviv,” reposts of speeches by a separatist from Donetsk region, field commander Mikhail Tolstykh, known as Givi.

After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Elymanov stopped posting on Instagram and began following independent Russian media and pages run by Russian opposition figures. A year ago, he deleted all his political posts, telling his followers: “Blyad, fuck off,” and from then on only posted about raising his son and rock bands.

On his current VKontakte page, the Yekaterinburg resident’s status is in Ukrainian: “As my mum would say about me: ‘I’m sorry, but Oleh is a bit of a nutcase.’”

26 September Elymanov’s relatives contacted OVD-Info, saying they consider his prosecution to be politically motivated. In conversation with his family, Elymanov stressed that since the start of the war in Donbas he has “categorically” changed his position and opposes Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.