A case has been opened against a St Petersburg woman for “rehabilitation of Nazism” over a post about the Motherland Calls statue.

The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Saint Petersburg resident Yanina Lenskaya for desecration of a symbol of military glory online (art. 354.1, part 4 of the Criminal Code), because of a post on VKontakte.

The woman was detained and charged, the agency reported on 12 August. Lenskaya admitted guilt.

The Combined Press Office of the St Petersburg courts clarified that the reason for the prosecution was a post published on VKontakte in October 2023, featuring a photo of the “Motherland Calls” sculpture at Mamayev Kurgan. The post began with the words: “Take a look at this….” The rest of the content was not disclosed.

On 13 August, Kirovsky District Court in Saint Petersburg selected “specific restrictions” as a pretrial measure for Lenskaya. She is banned from leaving Saint Petersburg and Leningrad region, attending mass events, sending or receiving mail, using the internet, or any means of communication.

This is not the first case under the law on the “rehabilitation of Nazism” connected to online posts about the “Motherland Calls” monument. On 12 August, in Oryol, a streamer was sentenced to two years of forced labour for a livestream in which she spat on an image of the monument. In October 2024, a blogger from Bashkortostan received one year of forced labour for a video address to the president asking to “cover the shameful parts” of the statue. Six months prior to that, in Volgograd, a major city in southern Russia, a blogger was convicted over a video in which she pretended to tickle the “Motherland Calls” figure—the young woman was sentenced to ten months of forced labour.