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A court in Moscow has found 48-year-old Oleg Elymanov guilty of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army motivated by political hatred. This was reported by the press service of the city’s courts of general jurisdiction.

The defendant was taken into custody immediately after the verdict was announced. During the investigation and trial, he had been under house arrest.

The case against Elymanov was opened because of a comment in the Telegram chat “Palata 13.” In July 2024, he copied a post from an anti-war public page and sent it to the chat about the second anniversary of the deaths of 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war at a prison in Olenivka, which was under Russian control. The post said that Russians had blown up the building holding the prisoners.

According to the version of the Russian authorities, the prison was hit by a missile strike by Ukrainian forces. Ukraine, on the other hand, accused Russian forces of staging the strike to “cover up torture of detainees and executions.” In the Ukrainian authorities’ account, the Russians detonated a thermobaric weapon inside the building. The United Nations believes the Russian version was false, but was unable to establish exactly what happened because observers were not allowed on site and evidence had been damaged.

  • In 2014 and 2016, Elymanov posted messages on his old VKontakte and Twitter pages in support of Donbas separatists, including reposts of their statements. These included posts calling for the “final surrender of Ukrofascists in Lviv.” At the same time, he criticised Russian politicians.
  • After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Elymanov stopped posting on Instagram and began following independent media outlets and opposition figures. About a year ago, he deleted all political posts from his page and wrote: “Blyad, idite v pizdu.” (“Fuck off, you bastards.”) After that, he only posted about raising his son and rock bands.
  • Elymanov’s relatives told OVD-Info that he had radically changed his position and now opposes the war in Ukraine.